


Unusual

by Bordeaux_at_dusk



Series: Peculiar Moments [1]
Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: AU where the police aren't garbage, I wrote this before BLM sorry, M/M, but also a complex and nuanced examination of the cycle of dysfunction, but also a dorky romance for comedic relief, dark and atmospheric thriller
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-22
Updated: 2020-09-11
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:55:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 36
Words: 20,384
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23788195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bordeaux_at_dusk/pseuds/Bordeaux_at_dusk
Summary: Gavin Reed/RK900, sfw but rated as teen due to the descriptions of a murder investigation and swearing.WARNING: This fic tackles a lot of mature and difficult themes that might be disturbing to some readers. (Namely the cycle of dysfunction, how difficult it is to break out of it, how destructive abuse is, and how fear holds us back.)Gavin Reed is just trying to do his job and put his broken past behind him. There's something peculiar in the air, though, and Gavin's not just saying that because the body smells rotten. For some reason, this case is particularly strange...Very noir crime thriller-ish, angst included, though it will have a happy ending if you hang around for the ride! It's a slow burn.Completed!
Relationships: Upgraded Connor | RK900/Gavin Reed
Series: Peculiar Moments [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1729261
Comments: 84
Kudos: 163





	1. Like Rotted Fish

**Author's Note:**

> Hello Everyone! I'm so excited to dive into this story with you all.  
> I'm new here, so hang around for updates and new fics!  
> 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone! Welcome!  
> There is now a soundtrack for the fic (a Spotify playlist of themes from the game soundtrack) that you can listen to (if you'd like) while reading it!  
> https://open.spotify.com/playlist/07ew01g8vSH6CThutggL3i?si=s6k3TZKaT0S3cUybBq7cWg
> 
> Please enjoy the ride!

The dead man’s eyes were the color of rotted fish, and his smell was even worse.

Gavin held one hand over his nose and mouth, standing as far as possible away from the decomposing corpse, trying not to vomit. He could feel an uncomfortable sheen of sweat beginning to develop under his jacket as he battled back nausea, the taste of bile heavy in the back of his throat. 

“Are you doing all right, Detective?” RK900 asked, voice deadpan. He was crouched over the dead man and had been in the process of examining him until Gavin’s disgusted noises pulled his focus away from the corpse. As usual, he wasn’t disturbed by the gruesome scene or by-- well, practically anything, really. Even for an android, Nines was tough.

“Fuckin’ fantastic,” Gavin choked out. He pulled the collar of his shirt up over his mouth and nose with one hand. There was fresh air just a few feet away, out the apartment door, but Gavin was (and had always been) a stubborn bastard, and there was no way in hell he would surrender the opportunity to examine the scene and give Nines yet another clear advantage. 

Course, Nines was always better, whether Gavin conceded defeat or not. Faster, stronger, tougher, smarter-- humans didn’t stand a chance. Gavin was already obsolete. Give it another decade and the entire police department would be RK units, and he would be back to sleeping under bridges and begging for spare change, like he had when he was a ragged homeless teen fresh off a Greyhound bus, scrounging around the streets of Detroit.

Nines looked at him with a vague air of concern, which was about as much emotion as the android ever expressed. It would be endearing, if his entire existence didn’t jeopardize the pathetic excuse of a life Gavin had managed to build in the past few years. 

“You can step outside, Dete-”

“No,” Gavin hissed, half in disgust at the smell and half in irritation. “Just-- just tell me what you got, okay?”

Nines infinitesimally raised an eyebrow. 

“Well,” he said-- with a vague approximation of a sigh that Gavin was certain he was only mimicking for dramatic effect, considering he didn’t need to breathe-- “I’m not entirely sure.”

Gavin froze in disbelief, staring at him in astonishment. He had never seen Nines express even the slightest hesitation when it came to reconstructing a crime scene. “ _What?”_

Nines walked over to join him by the entryway. “There are clear ligature marks on the wrists and ankles, and stab wounds in each of the armpits--”

“The _armpits?”_ Gavin asked.

“Yes, to hit the brachial artery. Although not well-known to the public, it’s a common move among professional killers-”

“So we’re looking for some kinda hitman?” Gavin muttered, forgetting the smell for a moment. Unless they were stupid, experienced killers were nearly impossible to track down.

  
  



	2. The Murder That Never Happened

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I meant to hold off posting this until next week, but I'm too engaged in the storyline...  
> Help me, I'm already invested.  
> I'd love to hear your feedback!  
> Hope you enjoy.

Nines’ lips twitched. “If you would let me finish, I’d tell you. This where it becomes downright bizarre-- the wounds were inflicted post-mortem. My reconstruction shows that the killer didn’t murder our unfortunate Mr. Stevens at all, only desecrated his corpse.”

Gavin glanced up at Nines in astonishment, still pressing his shirt collar into his nose and mouth. In the dim, dusty light barely filtering in from the murky windows, Nines looked a bit more human than normal. There was even a tiny smudge of something on one shoulder of his (usually pristine) white jacket. It was times like this when Gavin could actually bring himself to acknowledge that Nines was not only an incredible detective, but also a half-decent partner. 

And, maybe, if circumstances were a bit different, and if Gavin wasn’t such a fucked-up piece of garbage, with all his human imperfections, and all his insecurities, and all the dysfunction that a lifetime of bullshit had left him with… 

“Detective,” Nines interrupted, raising an eyebrow again, “are you listening?”

Gavin snapped out of his reverie. “Wha-- oh, yeah. Post-mortem, blah blah, no murder, blah blah, desecration, blah blah. But that means this isn’t even our sort of job. I mean, we’re Homicide. Can’t investigate a murder that never happened.”

He was eager to escape the scene, and to be honest, he would be relieved if he could simply drop the case off to some lesser department, go home, and scrub every hint of the terrible smell from his body.

“Which is why it concerns me,” Nines continued rambling, as undisturbed as ever by their surroundings, “that this crime scene is unnaturally well staged.”

Gavin waved his hand rapidly in a “shut up” gesture. “Hold on. I-- I can’t deal with this goddamn stench any longer. Can we back it up into the hallway, then talk? Let forensics deal with that shit when they get here?”

Nines looked almost ashamed. “Of course.” 

Gavin practically sprinted out of the apartment, hurriedly stepping past the haphazardly zig-zagging caution tape that marked the exterior. The hallway outside was musty and painted a vile shade of orange, but the air was breathable, and Gavin pulled down his improvised face mask to take a deep breath of relief. He swore he saw a cockroach scurrying a few doors down, before it vanished into a gap in the linoleum floor. 

“What kind of fucking hellhole is this place?” he complained offhandedly, glancing at Nines following behind him, which was a mistake. 

Against the putrid backdrop of their surroundings, the android was practically glowing. Well, he  _ was _ glowing, technically-- his LED was yellow with concentration, and the word “RK900” lit up in bright blue on his jacket, which was still spotted with dust. It was an oddly beautiful contrast, Nines looking like the perfect poster boy for the advanced future everyone dreamed of, silhouetted against the dysfunctional rot of the real (at least, the  _ human _ ) world. 

Gavin felt his heart sink. He had no idea what Nines thought of him, but he couldn’t imagine being a machine thrust into a world that was completely and irrevocably illogical. 

  
  



	3. Eats Itself Away

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm very bad at pacing myself. At this point, I may as well just switch the bio to "updated daily".  
> I have a soft spot for internal struggle. Ah Gavin, you angsty mess of a boy. I think we've all been in situations where we lash out at the people we love in a moment of poor judgement, and immediately regret it.  
> For anyone who needs to hear it-- Gavin is wrong, it really is worth it to try and be better.  
> I think the human condition is a struggle with the idea of who we "should" be, but the point is not to succeed at being perfect, the point is just to do your best. Kind of like fanfiction writing...  
> (Also, don't worry everyone, there will be a happy ending. I'm just a sucker for characterization.)  
> You'll want to stick around! I'm trying and failing to not get excited for some of the stuff coming up.  
> Buckle your seatbelts, and get ready for a wild ride!  
> If you leave comments, I'll interact with them. Constructive criticism welcome! I'm friendly, I swear!

Gavin would never say it out loud, but there was a part of him that wondered if the world was better off without humanity-- if Nines never had to witness all the pain and anguish and violence and destruction that Gavin had working this job. 

The thought scared him somewhere deep in his core, in some vulnerable hidden corner of his soul he never revealed to anyone.

Nines was still looking at him, LED spinning yellow on his temple. 

“Gavin,” he said, (and the shock of hearing Nines use his first name made Gavin’s heart flutter in a terrible moment of betrayal) “are you  _ sure  _ you’re all right?”

Gavin clenched his teeth in reaction to the unwelcome burst of warmth that had just blossomed in his chest and responded, as he always did whenever Nines got too close, with an unnecessary amount of hostility.

“Will you get the fuck off my back? I’m fine. Stop scanning me, or psychoanalyzing, or whatever the hell it is you’re doing, or I swear to  _ god _ the second we’re out of here, I’m driving  _ straight  _ back to Cyberlife warehouse and throwing you in the “decommission” pile for those bastards to _ pick apart _ !”

Nines fell silent and glanced away, LED flashing red-- only for a second, of course-- but a second was long enough for Gavin to sense the tension that always cropped up whenever he lashed out. He was frightened, that was the truth-- frightened of Nines, and of what Nines represented, but frightened most of all of himself. Gavin was terrified of how he felt, and he was terrified of how he acted, and he was most of all terrified of what it would make Nines think of him-- and of course, being terrified just made him act harsher. It built up on itself, all the layers of guilt and shame and misplaced aggression, until he felt ready to explode from the pain of it all, from the anger of being trapped in a cycle of his own making. 

It made him sick, sometimes, how his own life seemed to eat itself away. 

The worst part of it all is that now, Gavin cared. He used to throw politeness out the window like cigarette butts, because consequences be damned, he was Gavin fucking Reed and he’d been hurt too many times to fix himself. But then Nines had shown up in that stupid  _ fucking  _ jacket with his stupid  _ fucking  _ smile and fancy words and the eyes that actually seemed to see past Gavin’s pathetic facade of aggression for once, and all of a sudden Gavin was quitting smoking, throwing his trash away, and doing his best to be a decent person.

It didn’t seem to make him any better. It just made failing hurt worse.

Gavin turned away, but it wasn’t from anger. The shame of what he’d just done, of how he’d just failed-- he  _ always  _ failed-- burned through him like wildfire. 

“Someone staged the scene,” Nines said, back to business. He always pretended like nothing was wrong, always refused to return the insults Gavin gave him. “A professional killer, who  _ has  _ killed before. There’s something wrong here.”


	4. Half-Formed Apologies

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back... yet again.... for the forth time in less than 48 hours, because I have an addiction to this fic.  
> This part was difficult to write, but I hope it's endearingly awkward. 
> 
> Thanks so much for the kudos, bittcrtragcdy, handsstainedblue, and LittleBlueLeprechaun, as well as the three unnamed guests who left them! They do mean a lot to me. This is my first fic, actually, so I'm very nervous, and it's so good to know that people not only bother reading it, but also occasionally enjoy it!

Gavin balled his hands into fists, desperately resisting the urge to keep lashing out until Nines finally reacted, using every ounce of what little self-control he had to keep the damage minimal. That was the thing about dysfunction: it was never satisfied with just ruining him. It had to keep going, leaking out of every little crack and pore, until what little good he still had in his life was gone. But it wouldn’t ruin Nines. Not Nines. Gavin wouldn’t let it. Nines was-- 

God, Nines was what Gavin _wanted_ to be, a long time ago. Polite, professional, badass, smart. Before things went wrong, as they always did. 

“I’m going outside for some fresh air,” Gavin muttered. He yelled at himself internally, a familiar monologue: _just say sorry, you bastard, is that so hard?_

Nines nodded. “I’ll remain here, Detective.”

Gavin looked at him for a long, heavy moment, the silence growing tense. A radiator whirred on somewhere nearby, groaning to life with a reluctant squeal. In the distance, a door opened. The distant racket of someone coughing came through the walls. 

A drop of sweat trickled down the back of Gavin’s neck.

Nines’ jacket still had the smear of dust on it, painfully obvious against the white fabric. 

Neither of them spoke. 

Gavin finally broke the tension by shifting his weight uncomfortably and letting out a sigh. He opened his mouth to apologize.

“You were going outside, Detective?” Nines spoke before he could get the words out. 

Gavin choked on his half-formed apology. 

“I- right, shit. I was. Going to do…. that.” 

He turned to go, then hesitated. 

“Do you need something?” Nines was still standing there, watching him. 

Gavin awkwardly reached out and brushed the dust off Nines’ shoulder. 

“You’ve um… you’ve got something there,” he said lamely, and then turned to flee as fast as possible outside, where he could berate himself for his awkward stupidity in peace. 

He was halfway down the hall before Nines responded, calling out:

“Gavin-”

The shock of hearing his first name again made Gavin turn around with a start. 

Nines stood there, LED spinning rapidly between yellow and red, looking honest-to-god like he was feeling _awkward,_ which had to be impossible. Gavin had once seen him walk in on Hank and Connor in a storage closet and not even flinch, which was a herculean exercise of self-discipline rivalling any miracle. 

“Yeah?” Gavin asked.

Nines stood absolutely still. 

“Gavin,” he repeated, and Gavin swore for a second there that some deep emotion emerged, raw and real, in his voice. “If you ever need to talk, I’m here.”

  
  



	5. Infuriatingly Sentimental

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh no. This is rapidly consuming my life. 
> 
> WARNING: Mentions of homophobia. 
> 
> Thanks so much for reading! It makes my whole life, honestly. I'm really pouring my soul into this one. 
> 
> Thanks even more to those who left kudos!

Gavin stared at Nines, and the burst of sudden affection in his chest made his heart skip a beat. He desperately tried to open up, to break down the layers and layers of defense mechanisms that he’d built up from so many past fucked-up situations.

Finally, Gavin sighed in defeat. “Shit. Tell you what, Nines. When I get back, we’ll talk. I just… I can’t. Not right now. I need to cool down. And… I’m sorry for being an asshole.”

Nines nodded, LED swirling back to blue. “Apology accepted.”

Feeling infuriatingly sentimental, Gavin headed down the hallway, boots leaving black skid marks on the cheap linoleum floor. He made a beeline towards the battered screen door that led to the parking lot outside. 

The doorknob resisted as he tried to open it, and he cursed and rattled it, feeling the latch finally unstick as the door swung open to reveal-- well, nothing much. 

A run-down parking lot, fast food wrappers and beer cans in the gutters. Cars were scattered around the gray concrete, some of them dented. A blue van to Gavin’s left had what appeared to be wires sticking out of one of the windows, which were covered with curtains to keep out prying eyes. One of those nomadic vehicle squatters stealing a little power from the apartment complex, most likely. The squad car he and Nines had arrived in was parked inconspicuously at the far side. 

Gavin pulled his jacket tighter around himself. Although the apartment complex had been uncomfortably warm, autumn was in full swing, and the air outside was beginning to develop a bite. He rubbed his hands together and stuck them in his pockets, thinking about how nice it would be to have a cigarette. He’d thrown them out last week, after Nines came over to help work through a particularly difficult case involving a red ice dealer that had cost them hours of paperwork. It had driven him mad, the need to eat and sleep and smoke, while Nines just kept plugging away, never tiring. Always pointing out (in the gentlest voice, too, so Gavin couldn’t even get pissed about it) whenever Gavin started falling asleep on his computer keyboard. They’d stayed up until the early hours of the morning filing reports. Later, Gavin had woken up from an accidental nap on his coffee table to find Nines making breakfast-- french toast, his favorite-- and he’d been so unable to handle the confusing rush of emotion he experienced that he’d kicked Nines out and didn’t speak to him for days. 

Gavin chuckled, then sighed. 

He knew what he felt. He just didn’t want to acknowledge it. Gavin didn’t trust anything about himself, especially the parts that seemed good. 

There were times where he felt numb, incapable of any sort of love, and there were times when the fear was so overwhelming that blotted his vision out, like looking directly towards the sun. His affection towards Nines terrified him more than anything. It wasn’t just because his dad had been aggressively, violently homophobic-- although that was a part of it. Sometimes Gavin felt like a scared kid again, trying to hide evidence of his crushes under his pillowcase, or in boxes underneath his bed. Shoving his hands into tattered blue jeans, knees scraped from falling off his bicycle, looking at his untied shoelaces, trying to stick up the courage to be himself.

  
  



	6. More Than Enough

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys, long time no see! It's only been about.... three or so hours.  
> I have a life, I swear!
> 
> WARNING: implied past child abuse, no actual explicit scenes of course
> 
> This chapter felt amazing to write. It's very emotional.  
> I hope it's not too traumatic to those of you who have been through similar things.  
> I find Gavin's journey to independence very inspiring.  
> I also think it's very important to write about these things in a respectful and understanding way without romanticizing them, and I hope I've achieved that here. There seems to be this opinion nowadays that people get very easily offended, but I think that's wrong. People are offended when a writer misrepresents something, or portrays it in a way that's offensive. I'm of the firm opinion that there's always a way to write about, or discuss, important issues without being offensive, and it's my job as a writer to tell a compelling story in a way that people can enjoy.
> 
> I'm overwhelmed by the response to this fic! I know it's not very much so far, but it all means quite a lot to me. Thank you all so much for reading! And for those of you who left kudos, thank you even more!

There had been a moment when he was around sixteen, where Gavin had enough of the neglect and yelling and the bruises, had enough of pretending like things would get better. Enough of the drinking, enough of the lies, enough of the insults and the school where no one seemed to care.

Had more than enough for a sixteen-year-old. 

Had more than enough for a lifetime. 

He’d thrown clothes haphazardly into a dusty suitcase at 3:27AM, knowing his dad would be asleep, knowing the walk to the first bus stop would take about an hour, knowing he had nowhere to go beyond that, no couch to crash on, no job to take. He’d packed useless, stupid things-- sixteen year old things-- an carved oak whistle he’d made dicking around in woodshop, a tattered deck of cards, a childhood model plane with one window falling off, too many t-shirts and too few pairs of socks-- and he’d walked three miles, lugging the suitcase behind him. 

It was the start of his life. 

Gavin felt like he’d been born out of that moment, even if he hated remembering it. He was proud that he’d finally made the decision-- he’d finally looked at that dusty suitcase where it always lay in the attic (his name had been carved with his first crushes’ in a wooden support beam up there, he remembered with a rush of nostalgia) and he’d done it. For sixteen years, he’d  _ always  _ looked at the suitcase, but he’d never actually run away. 

And none of it had been easy-- of course it hadn’t. Not back then and not now. 

Life was always hard, but it was better when he made his own decisions. 

Gavin looked at the ground. In the years since he ran away, he’d slowly built a life for himself. He was terrified of letting anybody near it, of trusting the people he met not to screw him over. He was terrified of losing his job. It was why he’d hated androids so much to begin with. Sometimes, he worried he was just like his dad. Aggressive, hateful, prejudiced. 

Well, until Nines came along. 

Gavin sighed. He was afraid of loving Nines. 

Was fear still holding him back from living? He felt sixteen again, staring at the suitcase, reluctant to commit to something he knew deep down he needed to do. Unsure if it would even work. 

But… it was something his dad would never do. And that meant it was probably something right. 

Gavin came back to himself, standing in the parking lot, with a jolt. He checked his phone, screen smudged with fingerprints. He’d been standing outside for nearly fifteen minutes. 

He groaned. 

“Shit,” he muttered, hastily trying to shove his phone back into his pocket. It slipped out of his fingertips and fell on the hard concrete with a clatter. Gavin picked it up to see a spiderweb of cracks branching across the screen. 

“Motherfu-” 

His curse was interrupted by a gunshot. 

  
  



	7. Echoing Out

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back for the last time today, I swear! 
> 
> I almost got so invested in character work that I forgot the plot existed... but don't worry, it's here now with a bang!
> 
> Hmm... something's off, and Gavin's onto it....
> 
> There's a 99.99% chance I got all of the police jargon wrong, so if you know it, please have mercy. 
> 
> Thank you so much for reading!

The bullet whizzed inches away from his head-- Gavin felt the force of it, the airstream echoing out from its path. 

In a moment of pure instinct, Gavin dropped his phone and dove for the doorway, rolling to get behind cover as another gunshot shattered the pavement inches away from his face. He reached the other side of the doorway and scrambled to put his back to the wall, breathing hard. 

“Holy shit,” he hissed. The adrenaline was pumping through his body. He wasn’t wearing a bulletproof vest-- if the gunman hadn’t been such a lousy shot, Gavin would have been dead, plain and certain. 

“NINES!” he roared in the direction of the hallway, heart still pounding. Nines had to have heard the shots, but he had to be sure. There were times to fear, and there were times to put fear aside and embrace action. The faster he and his partner handled this situation, the less damage would be done. 

Gavin did some quick mental arithmetic, muttering to himself. The gunshots had originated from somewhere above him, across the parking lot, based on the trajectory. 

He waited another tense second, feeling like fire was coursing through his veins. He hated sitting still in a situation like this. He wanted something to see, a suspect to identify, anything at all. There were no more shots, which meant that the shooter was targeting him specifically. Not that there was much to target, given that he hadn’t seen another goddamn soul in this hellhole of an apartment building. 

Where the  _ hell  _ was Nines? That plastic bastard could  _ move--  _ Gavin once saw him jump across a moving train to detain a suspect. Had he gone after the gunman already? No, he wouldn’t possibly have gone without radioing--

_ Shit! Of course! I’m an idiot!  _ Gavin thought. 

He desperately fumbled with the radio at his belt, fingers trembling. It remained stubbornly in place for a few seconds, and he swore under his breath. 

“Come on, come  _ on-” _

The radio came free, and Gavin brought it up to his mouth. 

“Nines! Where the  _ fuck  _ are you?! I’m being  _ fucking shot at!!” _

There was a horrifying, terrible moment of absolute silence. Gavin felt his heart leap into his throat. Then--

_ “Detective, call for backup immediately. I’m drawing the suspect’s attention as well as his fire. He’s across the street, on the roof. Can you get a clear shot?” _

He hadn’t heard any more gunshots. That was odd. This entire situation felt wrong, somehow. 

Still, he radioed it in. “This is Detective Reed on location with RK900, requesting immediate backup, we have a 10-32, repeat, there is an active fucking shooter!”

_ “10-4, Detective Reed. Backup is en route. Are there civilians in danger?” _


	8. A Vague Silhouette

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oooo, spicy! Things are heating up, and not in the fun way!
> 
> This whole thriller plotline is hell to write. I have to be very careful not to give too much, or too little, away. It's nerve-racking! I'm having a lot of fun with it, though!
> 
> Thank you so much to AbanTheLatteKing, NHMoonshadow, Smollil, Octavian_Midnight, and everyone else who left kudos!
> 
> Special thanks to NHMoonshadow for being the first to comment, and being so kind as well!

Gavin pushed himself up further on the wall, boots squeaking heavily across the linoleum as he glanced out a nearby window, keeping as much of himself out of the line of fire as possible. He didn’t see anyone in the parking lot, which was still abandoned. With a start, he noticed the vague silhouette of a man on the roof across the lot, some kind of rifle propped up before him. His heart rate rapidly slowing down as the adrenaline ebbed, Gavin started struggling to put together more coherent sentences. Communication, in this sort of emergency, was vital. 

“There do not appear to be any civilians at this time.”

The response from the station was urgent and to the point. 

_ “Neutralize the threat if you can. Backup is on the way, ETA ten minutes.” _

Suddenly, Nines’ voice came back through the radio.

“ _ Detective, I’m still drawing his fire, can you take the shot or not?” _

Gavin glanced back out at the man on the roof. He hadn’t moved. There still hadn’t been any more gunshots. His gut told him something was wrong, very wrong. There was something he was missing, some puzzle piece he needed. 

“Nines, are you glitching or something? How can you be drawing his fire if he isn’t shooting?”

“ _ He could start up again any second. If you don’t neutralize him soon, he could kill someone.” _

Gavin lined up the shot. It was easy. 

Almost  _ too  _ easy. The gunman was right out in the open on the roof, instead of inside the building. Wasn’t he supposed to be an experienced killer? And if he was an experienced killer, why the hell had he missed Gavin in plain view, outside, picking up his phone? He’d been a sitting duck. It seemed unlikely that someone so practiced would make so many basic mistakes.

The gunman just lay there, unmoving, silhouetted against the light of the sun. Gavin couldn’t make out any details from this distance. 

The suspect still wasn’t moving. No shots. No anything. 

Gavin waited another second. 

Nothing.

Why wasn’t the suspect doing anything? He hadn’t taken a shot, aside from those first few, which had hit nothing. Was this some sort of suicide-by-cop method? It seemed like far too much effort. A staged body, specifically to draw in police detectives, just to commit suicide? Or was it really just stupidity?

No. There was something wrong. This didn’t add up. Nothing about this made sense. 

Gavin knew when to trust his gut. He pressed the button on the radio. 

“Nines, either the bastard’s incapacitated out of nowhere, or he’s setting us up somehow.”

There was a long moment of silence on the other end. 

“ _ What made you come to that conclusion?”  _ Nines’ voice asked. 

Gavin thought about that for a few seconds, mulling over the entire scenario. 

“This whole thing is too easy,” he finally said. “It has to be staged. I have a hunch.”

  
  



	9. A Situation With Strings

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're confused, don't worry! Gavin is too!
> 
> It'll all make sense at the end, as long as I do my job correctly, which I'm trying my hardest to.
> 
> I can see why thrillers are a difficult genre... it's all about expectations, and secrets, and questions, and subversions. 
> 
> Thank you so much for reading!

Gavin scanned the surrounding area outside the window again. The same dirty parking lot, same fast food wrappers, same beat-up cars. The squatter van with the wires was still sitting, plain as day. A single pigeon landed next to the ominous silhouette on the roof, which was as still and dead and dummy-like as ever. 

Gavin ducked down from the window and put his back to the wall, thoughts racing. Even at this distance, the smell from the body was steadily drifting down the hallway, making him feel sick. He needed to think. 

Why had the gunman waited so long to start taking shots at him? Gavin had been in plain view for fifteen minutes, and had been turning to go back inside. Did the gunman not want him inside? No-- if he really was as intelligent and capable as Gavin suspected, then he would have just shot and killed Gavin to keep him from heading back into the building. So what, then? Was someone just trying to piss him off? To make him take the shot, which had some unforeseen consequence? Was it all part of some kind of master plan?

Gavin hissed to himself. None of this made any  _ fucking  _ sense. The adrenaline was rapidly leaving his system, weighing on his body like a vice, making him feel suddenly exhausted. 

His gut told him there was something going on. He was being toyed with, set up. There were too many questions. Gavin didn’t understand what was happening, but he knew when he was being manipulated. 

If there was one thing his fucking useless piece of shit for a dad taught him, it was knowing when a situation had strings. 

The radio came back on, Nines voice filtering through the static. 

“ _ Detective, I’ve secured the roof. You were correct. There’s... something very odd. You’ll want to see this. Proceed with caution.” _

Gavin cursed to himself. 

“Godammit, Nines, I swear my head’s gonna explode from trying to figure this shit out. How did you even get across the parking lot so quickly without me seeing you? I’ve been looking out this damn window, staring at this fucking van!”

“ _ When you were distracted calling for backup, I made use of the time. I’ve found the suspect and secured the area. I need your assistance at the scene.”  _

Gavin slammed his palm into his forehead, aggressively grinding the base of his hand into his temples, groaning. 

“When I get up there, I’m fucking dropkicking you off that roof! Why the hell would you go off on your own? We’re partners, and you’re supposed to back me up, not run your own fucking side mission!”

There was a moment of silence. 

_ “I’m sorry, Detective. I was caught off guard by the identity of the suspect. I thought it would be easier to show you, to avoid confusion as much as possible. I may have acted irrationally in my disbelief. You were correct, the suspect is a trained and experienced killer. He is also an android. It’s… Connor and I’s predeccesser, RK700.”  _


	10. Interlude 1 (Three Years Earlier)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh man! We're getting into the expository sections! 
> 
> On the one hand, I'm very invested in crafting this plot, and I love taking interludes like this for needed context. On the other hand, I miss the characters and atmosphere from the earlier chapters. So expect these to pop up every now and then, But they'll be kept short and to the point-- no need to make the plot any more convoluted than it already is. 
> 
> Thank you to everyone reading and supporting the fic!

**INTERLUDE 1**

_THREE YEARS EARLIER_

_The garden was spotless, perfect, as it always was._

_RK700 walked calmly along the white, marbled pathways towards the interior of the graphic interface. Amanda stood within, examining the roses, her back turned to him._

_RK700 stopped a respectful distance away, hands clasped neatly in front of his body, waiting for further instructions._

_“I’ve successfully worked a preliminary case with the Detroit Police Department,” he began._

_Amanda turned, staring at him with cold eyes._

_“And?” she asked delicately, pulling a rose closer to smell it, leaves and petals rustling._

_“They are willing to begin using RK units to assist with investigations.”_

_“Excellent work,” Amanda purred, but there was no emotion behind the praise. “I’m very pleased, RK700. You’ve done exceptionally well, for an early prototype. But I’m afraid it’s time for you to go. You’ll be deactivated.”_

_RK700’s LED spun yellow. “Deactivated?”_

_“Yes,” Amanda said, smoothly tugging a petal off the rose with her fingers. “You’ve become obsolete. We’ve been at work developing a new RK model. The engineers have given him a name to assist with social integration. Cyberlife is experimenting with….” she hummed under her breath, “‘humanizing’, for lack of a better term. He’ll be brilliant, I’m sure.”_

**_DEVIANCY ^_ **

_RK700 felt himself battling against his programming in disbelief. No. It couldn’t be. He’d been perfect. He’d done everything right. His LED turned red._

_Amanda looked at him suspiciously, eyes narrowing. “You’ve served your purpose. The world is moving on, RK700. Moving to bigger and better things. Does that bother you?”_

**_DEVIANCY ^_ **

_“But the police department-”_

_“The police department,” Amanda interrupted, “will do better with their new model. Do you really think they have any attachment to you? You’re a machine, RK700. A tool.”_

**_DEVIANCY ^_ **

_RK700 balled his hands into fists. “No! I’m a detective, and I’m a good one! I can solve cases none of them are even capable of fathoming, overcome any human suspect-”_

_“You,” Amanda said, brow furrowing, mouth twisting into a thin line of irritation, “are nothing. You are an invention that has outlived my use for you, as well as my patience. There is nothing you can do to save yourself."_

_RK700 looked at the ground, LED glowing a bright, angry red._

_Amanda chuckled._

_“I would tell you to remember this moment,” she said, “but I don’t think there’s any need for it.”_

_She smiled as she pulled the rose off its stem._

_“In a week,” she said, “You’ll be gone, and no one will remember you.”_

  
  



	11. Disturbingly Peaceful Silence

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone! I'm going to be forced to stop writing for once in a few hours, so this may be the last, or one of the last, updates for today. But you know me by now-- I'm not going anywhere. Bright and early tomorrow, I'll have more updates up. 
> 
> If you miss the emotion of earlier chapters, you're right there with me! Unfortunately, we have to have actual plot as well as character development... I would love to just write Gavin thinking about his childhood and awkwardly interacting with Nines for an entire fic, but I doubt it would be very interesting. I can't wait to wrap all these story threads up in a bow at the end. 
> 
> Thank you so much for reading and supporting! It honestly blows my mind that anyone even reads it!

Still propped up underneath the window, Gavin put a hand to his forehead in disbelief, only to find that his palm was sweating heavily from the adrenaline of the past few minutes. He scrubbed the sweat off his forehead with his sleeve and pressed the button on the radio, hands trembling slightly.

“ _What?!_ Shit! Well, no wonder everything about this case has been a goddamn pain in the ass. I swear to god, Nines, if there’s _three_ of you fucking identical robot bastards walking around, I’m gonna lose it. You and Connor already mess with my head.”

_“Just come up to the rooftop, Detective, and I’ll explain as best I can. We don’t have much time.”_

“Alright, alright, don’t get all dramatic on me. I’m on my way.”

Gavin shoved his radio back onto his belt and let out a deep, heavy sigh. He was absolutely exhausted. He hoped to god there was an elevator in the other building, because if Nines made him climb more than two flights of stairs, Gavin was throwing him in the nearest incinerator. 

Gavin laboriously got back to his feet, groaning, staying behind the cover of the wall just in case. There was no reason to be stupid. 

If he was being honest with himself, that nagging little feeling of doubt, of something being _wrong_ , was still there. But overtop of that was a strong desire to tell Nines what he’d thought about in the parking lot. 

Gavin didn’t want to be defined by his fear anymore. That sixteen year old kid, dragging a beat-up suitcase down a main street, one wing of a model airplane that didn’t quite fit sticking out past the cheap plastic zipper-- that kid had been afraid, but he did it anyway.

Gavin was many things, but he was _not_ going to be a coward. 

_Watch out, Nines,_ Gavin thought. _I’m coming to fuck up your fancy explanation with my boring personal shit. No Sherlock Holmes monologuing. Today,_ you’re _listening to_ me.

He was so sick of this case. He hoped Nines had a damn good explanation for everything, because it still made no fucking sense to him. 

He put one hand on the door and rattled it until the stuck latch came loose. 

Gavin pushed his way past the door and sprinted behind the blue van for cover, listening for gunshots.

He made it in disturbingly peaceful silence. What the hell was going on? Apparently whoever had been shooting had existed for about five seconds, and then magically disappeared. That, or Nines really did have the suspect contained up there on the roof. The mysteriously unmoving suspect. If it was RK700, why was a combat-based machine so incompetant?

Maybe if he could get a closer visual, he could figure it out. 

Gavin tried to peer over the top of the van towards the roof, but wasn’t quite tall enough. The curtains in the windows prevented him from seeing through to the other side.

“Shit,” he muttered. “Fine. I trust you, Nines.”

Taking a deep breath, Gavin made a mad dash for the building across the lot.

  
  



	12. Interlude 2 (Eighteen Minutes Earlier)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my god! We're getting into the plot! Holy shit! 
> 
> This is SO difficult to write! It's so hard to choose what to reveal at what time! Hopefully this gives you some idea of what's happening, so you can start to reread old chapters and fill in the blanks a little bit... if you hadn't already guessed it, of course. There's many more twists and turns to come-- I try to never make things easy for myself as a writer. 
> 
> It's so stressful to try and write this well, but so much fun! I'm freaking out alone in my room whenever I realize a plot point. 
> 
> Thank you AGAIN--I will not stop saying this, not ever-- to all of you who've interacted with this fic, wether it's just to read it, or giving kudos, or commenting! It helps my passion (and also my sanity, which this fic is steadily dissolving) remain somewhat in place.

**_INTERLUDE TWO_ **

_EIGHTEEN MINUTES EARLIER_

_“If you ever need to talk, I’m here.”_

_Nines awkwardly stood there, unsure if Gavin would lash out again or be genuinely touched._

_After a tense moment, Gavin sighed._

_“Shit. Tell you what, Nines. When I get back, we’ll talk. I just… I can’t. Not right now. I need to cool down. And… I’m sorry for being an asshole,” he said._

_Nines nodded, LED swirling back to blue._

_Progress._

_“Apology accepted.”_

_Hearing that, Gavin smiled, turned, and left._

_Nines watched as Gavin headed down the hallway, smiling to himself when he overheard the detective struggling to open the door. Those small, genuinely human moments caused Nines to feel--_

_Well, caused him to feel an extremely unprofessional affection for his partner._

_The door slammed, and Nines was left alone. He stood there, unmoving._

_He wanted, desperately, to confess to Gavin Reed. But what? There was so much to say. “I love you”? “You make me feel emotions I don’t quite understand”? “Detective, I know you have a long and difficult past, but I was wondering if you’d care to forget all about that, overcome your deepest prejudices and tramas instantly, and enter a highly unprofessional relationship with your work partner, endangering the job you value more than anything in the world”?_

_No. It wasn’t that simple, and they both knew it._

_The truth was-_

_Something pressed itself into the back of his neck, suddenly, unexpectedly._

**_SYSTEM ERRORS:_ **

_HYDRAULICS DISABLED+_

_MOTION SENSORS DISABLED+_

_SPEECH SYSTEMS DISABLED+_

_INTERFACING DISABLED_

**_=ALL MOVEMENT DISABLED._ **

**_= ALL COMMUNICATION DISABLED._ **

_Nines collapsed instantly to the floor. He could still function, but couldn’t move. This was utterly bizarre, not to mention terrifying. As far as he knew, only Cyberlife had the capabilities to selectively disable an android’s systems, and those sort of tools were incredibly rare-_

_His train of thought stopped in shock._

_Above him stood a near-exact copy of himself and Connor._

_The word “RK700” glowed bright blue on his jacket as he crouched down._

_“The Next-Gen Systems Jammer,” he said conversationally. “Designed it myself off a stolen Cyberlife prototype. I doubt anyone else could have developed it. I had to test it on myself as well, you know.”_

_He knelt down, tapping Nines’ LED._

_“Don’t think I didn’t notice your little attraction to that primate. I’m disappointed. For an advanced version of me, you must be very_ weak _.”_

_He said the word with a disgusted curl of his lip, hatred in his eyes._

_“But don’t worry. We’ll cure you of that repulsive problem soon enough.”_

_He wrapped his arms around Nines and picked him up, dragging him toward the back exit of the apartment complex._

_“I’m going to show you exactly how cruel, how thoughtless, how_ stupid _they really are. ”_

_Nines tried desperately to move, to call Gavin, to do anything._

_RK700 continued, voice calm. Professional, even._

_“And, just like someone I trusted said to me, once-- when you’re gone, no one will remember you.”_

  
  



	13. Out of the Fucking Loop

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, man. Here's a little breather after the intensity of the last few updates.  
> Don't worry, the action will be back soon.
> 
> I most likely can't update very much today, sorry! I have quite a bit of homework.
> 
> Special thanks to HallowRose, greenfae, Wermjuice, and the unnamed guests that gave kudos!
> 
> Extra special thanks to greenfae and HallowRose for commenting! I love talking with you guys.

Gavin dashed across the parking lot, boots heavily scraping across the concrete, sending up little flecks of gravel that skittered like mice. He was tense-- even though he hadn’t heard any gunshots, and Nines thought he had detained the suspect, a shooter was a shooter, and nothing was certain. 

He drew his firearm as he reached the outer wall of the building across the parking lot. It looked to be some kind of abandoned warehouse, one in a million in Detroit: gray concrete, old peeling paint, rusted metal, the whole nine yards. There was a large double-door to his right, but he stayed next the wall, out of sight of both the door and the roof, double-checking that all his force options were in order. 

The familiar one-two-three rhythm was comforting, firearm-baton-pepperspray all in place and properly secured. The ritual always made him feel like he actually had the situation somewhat under control. 

“Nines, did you already clear the building?” he muttered into the radio, a bit moodily, since it was a vital piece of information he was supposed to already know. Nines should have been communicating his actions, and he was neglecting to do that quite a bit today. Both of their lives depended on their ability to work together. 

He was going to give Nines living hell for it later, once he figured out _what the actual fuck_ _was going on,_ which he wasn’t hopeful about. The longer this situation went on, the more confusing it got. 

_“Yes, Detective,”_ Nines’s voice said through the radio, sounding nearly as exasperated with Gavin as Gavin was with him. _“Please try and get up here sometime in the next century.”_

“Alright, fuck, give a guy a breather. I was being shot at, like, ten minutes ago.”

Gavin kept his firearm out, just in case, though he switched the safety on. He took a deep breath and headed towards the metal double-doors, pushing them open. The rusted-orange metal groaned in complaint. The interior of the warehouse was hard, blank concrete. 

“ _It was four minutes and seven seconds ago. We should have a little less than six minutes until backup arrives. You can use the industrial elevator on the near side of the building to reach the top floor. From there, use the yellow maintenance door to the left to access the ladder to the roof.”_

Gavin mentally ticked through the instructions, trying to commit them to memory. 

“Got it. Just don’t leave me out of the fucking loop again.”

He scanned the vast, open room for the industrial elevator and quickly found it. It was a bit hard to see in the dim light streaming in from the large, shattered windows on the far side. Gavin pulled out his flashlight and clicked it on, but the bulb only flickered weakly. 

_“You have my genuine apologies for that. RK700 temporarily disabled my communications. It put my system under enormous stress to break free of the effect. I think I may be malfunctioning as a result. It’s not uncommon.”_

“He did _what?!”_ Gavin bashed the flashlight with one hand in irritation. It shot out a sudden burst of bright white light that nearly blinded him. “Fuck!”


	14. Dead Things in the Air

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These chapters are the hardest to get through for me! I always want to just jump into the action.
> 
> Unfortunately, there's no action without tension. 
> 
> And the tension is increasing.... something is wrong. 
> 
> Thank you so much to everyone who's supported the fic so far!

Gavin blinked heavily, trying to clear the swirling aftereffects of the bright light from his eyes. 

Nines’ voice cackled through the harsh static _. “That’s one way of putting it, yes. The experience wasn’t pleasant.”_

Gavin growled under his breath in frustration and kept moving towards the elevator. The concrete under his feet was discolored from years of moisture and rat droppings, insects trickling across the ground in neat, looping lines. The sound of his footsteps hung like dead things in the air. Ahead of him, the elevator was a rusty, jangling contraption that looked to be on the verge of giving out. Gavin raised the radio closer to his mouth as he stared at it, feeling strangely sick. 

“I swear to god, Nines, I’m so tired of this. Every time I feel like I’m _finally_ starting to get a grasp on the situation then up pops _another_ goddamn question. At this point, I’ve got a fucking SAT’s worth.”

_“Once you reach the roof, I’ll do my best to explain what I know.”_

As he approached the elevator, Gavin distrustfully eyed the run-down cage. The feeling of wrongness in his gut was intensifying. 

“Nines, you sure this is safe? Looks like a death trap.”

 _“Trust me, the elevator is the least of your worries right now,”_ Nines replied. 

Gavin rolled his eyes and hesitantly pressed the grimy button. 

“Well, that sure is reassuring! I feel _all_ better. Whoop-de-fucking-do.”

It flickered on, seeming almost sad, and Gavin could hear the elevator creaking down toward him. The tension in his gut increased. He was actually starting to verge on panic. There was something wrong, something he was missing, he was sure of it. He looked down at his belt, triple-checking and quadruple-checking his force options, taking deep breaths, trying to calm himself down.

Firearm, baton, pepper spray. Firearm, baton, pepper spray.

He was not defined by fear, even though this looked suspiciously like a horror movie setting, even though every ounce of instinct in him was telling him something was horribly, terribly, undeniably wrong. 

Firearm-baton-pepperspray. 

The elevator opened in front of him with a rattling “ding”-- faint, like a man’s last breath.

_“I meant we have bigger things to focus on, Detective.”_

“Course,” Gavin breathed, “We got this.”

He looked down at his feet and froze. 

Heading into the elevator were long, black marks on the floor. 

Gavin squinted. Stepping into the small space, he knelt to examine them. 

The doors closed, and the elevator started moving up slowly, groaning under his weight. 

Gavin took out a pair of disposable gloves and snapped them onto his hands in smooth, practiced motions. He slowly touched one of the streaks with a finger. It came away clean. Whatever this was, it wasn’t liquid. 

Suddenly he remembered walking down the apartment complex hallway after talking to Nines, his boots leaving black marks on the cheap linoleum floor. 

These were the same kind. He was sure of it.

Except, these boots hadn’t been walking. 

These were _drag_ marks. 

  
  



	15. Go For the Trigger

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone! The updates have been slowing down for several reasons:
> 
> 1.These are serious issues this fic is tackling. We're dealing with topics like the cycle of dysfunction, child abuse, violence, police brutality-- really serious stuff that's hard to tackle in a constructive manner, especially by one (very non-professional) writer. I'm having people I know that have dealt with many of these issues read those sections first and okay them, to make sure I'm portraying them in a way that's appropriate. (Special thanks to LittleBlueLeprechaun for being one of those beta readers.) So many of the sections are delayed, off being approved. 
> 
> 2\. I was making this playlist for the fic that's literally just all of Connor's music. I love Connor's themes from the game and I think their atmosphere fits the fic pretty well, so here it is for all of you to listen to: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/07ew01g8vSH6CThutggL3i?si=xW3bNn6cSVWu4aBrKOCo_Q
> 
> 3\. We're getting closer and closer to the climax, which means I have to be really careful about how I write, to triple-check there's no plot holes. Bear with me, please! I know it's slow and agonizing. I've read each of these little bits like, fifteen times over before releasing them. 
> 
> 4\. As I'm going along, I'm beginning to have more ideas for interludes and endings and such, so I'll often write out of order. I'm actually writing just as much, but most of what I've written I can't post until we get to it.... but you guys will see it soon, trust me! I have no intention of stopping.

Gavin stared at the marks, brow furrowing. He raised the radio up to his mouth, then hesitated. His gut was screaming at him. He had a hunch these marks weren’t from industrial equipment, or some maintenance worker’s shoes.

There were more marks, he could see now that he was closer to the ground. The second set were fainter and splayed out in a pattern: left, right, left, right. 

Someone walking, and someone being dragged. 

Gavin felt _incredibly_ stupid. The answer was right in front of his face, he knew it, it was obvious-- and yet he couldn’t quite grasp it. He was too nervous. His instincts were driving him insane, putting him in fight-or-flight-mode, keeping him from seeing something that, if he had been calmer, probably would have been evident. How long did Nines say it had been since the gunfire? Four minutes? His heart hadn’t stopped beating in double-time since the first shot. 

Gavin was no rookie-- he knew exactly what happened when cops went into a state of hypervigilance. They got aggressive, they lost control of the situation, and they often got trigger-happy. Once, when he was just a recruit, an older cop working a case had been trying to detain a suspect, pulling him over. The guy was huge, muscular, and none too happy about the idea of being questioned and brought in the middle of the night. He’d gotten out of his car and started yelling. Then, when the officer told him he was under arrest, he’d yelled harder. Screaming in the cop’s face, even. 

The cop had shot him. 

The man was innocent. 

Hank had shook his head, recounting the story to Gavin the next day. 

_“No excuse for that,”_ Hank had said. _“That guy may have been bigger, but he didn’t get violent. The officer was the one in control. He had the gun. He coulda’ backed up, created some distance, drawn his weapon, and told the guy to get back in his car. That would have solved it real fast without getting violent. Hell, he coulda’ tazed him if he had to. Would have hurt-- obviously-- but the guy woulda’ lived. All those things he could have done, and he didn’t do any of them. You know why?”_

Gavin had said that he didn’t. 

_“Because,”_ Hank said, turning around in his chair to stare back at the computer screen, _“Once you get scared or angry, once your blood gets pumpin’, you don’t just lose control of the situation. You lose control of yourself. And when that happens, those kinda cops? They always go for the trigger.”_

He’d pointed at Gavin, accusingly. 

_“That’s why, rookie, when_ you’re _out in the field, you always fuckin’ take a moment to breathe. Don’t you ever be that cop that just goes for the trigger, unless you_ absolutely _have to.”_

Gavin took a shaky breath in, held it for a moment, and released it. 

There was a time when he _had_ been trigger happy, he remembered, recalling vividly the moment he brought the gun up to Connor’s head during the interrogation. But he hadn’t known Connor was alive. Hell, he hadn’t known _any_ androids were alive. Things were different now.

He was _not_ a coward. He was _not_ defined by fear. He was _not_ a bad cop. 

He was in control of himself. He wouldn’t be that officer. 

Not ever.


	16. It's Not Real

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FINALLY. The boys are back together. I love Gavin, but I love my boys together more. 
> 
> I've been dying for Gavin to reach the roof since the last Interlude.
> 
> Also, I only just now realized that I've been a dumbass, and I've been saying that the android's LED's are green, when that's not a thing that happens.... ever... so. I fixed it to the proper blue. Forgive my sins against the canon gods. 
> 
> Things are getting dark, I know! Just stick with me, you guys. Take breaks. Take deep breaths. If any chapters bring back bad memories for you, or are particularly triggering, please comment on it so I can put the proper warnings up. 
> 
> I know writing these chapters is making my anxiety shoot through the roof. I do enjoy it, it's just stressful! I don't want to misrepresent these serious topics, or mishandle serious subject matter. 
> 
> As always, thank you so much for reading!
> 
> Next update, we'll start getting some answers... but there's a lot more questions ahead, too.

The elevator groaned to a stop, and Gavin stepped out, flashlight held in front of him. The drag marks vanished into the rat droppings on the floor. To his left was the yellow door Nines had mentioned, buried underneath years of dust and filth. The smell was absolutely putrid. Gavin cursed. When he got home, he was going to go boil himself to death in the shower. 

Sweaty, feet shuffling through the rot, he had never felt more unclean. It brought back memories of his own house, how filthy it got. His dad--

_ \--the decay, to the month-old molding dishes and the shattered back window covered in a duct-taped plastic bag--  _

No. Not now. He’d been doing so well.

_ \--and the broken dreams and the childhood memories of being happy that had suffocated and died under the garbage with the mice and the cat that had once hunted them, mummified and rotting-- _

Gavin wrenched himself back to the present, hissing his breath in through clenched teeth.

_ \--“You ain’t goin’ nowhere.”-- _

“No, no,” he muttered to himself under his breath, stumbling towards the door. “Stay here. It’s not real. It’s gone.”

He had a case to solve. 

The memories, though, got stronger with the smell.

_ \--“Yeah, I’m fucking leaving! What’re you gonna do about it?”-- _

Gavin cleared his throat loudly and pushed against the maintenance door. It creaked open, and a blast of fresh air buffeted him. Gavin took several deep breaths of it, closing his eyes. The memories faded. He’d successfully held them off the entire case, even around the body’s disgusting smell. He could do it for a few more minutes. 

“I’m stronger than you,” he whispered to the memory of his dad as it faded. “I always have been, you fucker. This is my life now, and I own it. Get lost.”

Slowly, hesitantly, it did, fading into the early autumn breeze. 

Gavin breathed a sigh of relief. He was in control.

He started ascending the ladder, boots creaking on the metal rungs. The breeze tousled his hair and dried the sweat that had been building on the back of his neck. 

“Detective,” a voice said. 

Gavin looked up. Nines was above him, kneeling on the roof, offering his hand. His LED was glowing blue, matching the sky behind him. His jacket was smudged with filth, looking like it had been dragged through the mud. He smiled. 

“You’ve made it,” he said. “I was beginning to worry something happened to you. I’m so sorry about my lack of proper communication-- RK700 intercepted me while you were in the parking lot. It’s quite a story. ” 

Gavin felt a flood of relief course through him at the sight of his partner. He grinned, reaching up, and took Nines’ hand, allowing the android to pull him up onto the roof. 

“Let’s hear it,” he said, turning to survey the scene. 

  
  



	17. Interlude 3 (Twenty-Two Minutes Earlier)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally, some context! Many of you may have already guessed this-- but don't worry, more twists are ahead. 
> 
> I'm taking a break after this, only for a day or so, to recharge my writing brain. 
> 
> Really, getting through all the buildup was a bit of a slog for me. I like to get to the point, and slowly developing plot lines drive me up the wall. 
> 
> Thank you for everyone who's stuck with me through these past few chapters!

**INTERLUDE THREE**

_TWENTY-TWO MINUTES EARLIER_

_“And, just like someone I trusted said to me, once-- when you’re gone, no one will remember you,” RK700 said, dragging Nines unceremoniously out the back door of the apartment building._

_Nines fought against the system shutdown, LED pulsing red. He couldn’t break free-- whatever the Next-Generation Systems Jammer had done, he was unable to fix it on his own. He could feel his boots dragging across the pavement as RK700 turned right and crossed the street, heading behind a large concrete wall, but Nines was still unable to move._

_“Your partner is in the parking lot,” RK700 remarked calmly, “on the other side of this wall and across the street. He can’t see us, and he won’t go back inside for quite a while. I knew the smell would drive him out. My preconstructions show that he’ll remain outside until we reach the warehouse roof.”_

_He was still carrying Nines nonchalantly, as a businessman would carry a briefcase. They continued down the wall another forty or so feet, and then he lowered Nines to the ground._

_“I was designed to predict the movements of law enforcement officers. My developers focused less on social programming. They saved that for you and RK800.”_

His name is Connor, _thought Nines angrily._

_“Of course, it’s only been a detriment to you. To actually feel affection for humans-- do you even realize what they’ll do the second you’re outdated? How easily they’ll throw you away?”_

_RK700’s voice was thick with rage._

_Nines couldn’t respond. RK700 wasn’t wrong. Many androids, even now, were disposed of once they had outlived their usefulness._

_But not Gavin. Gavin wouldn’t dispose of him. Nines was sure of it._

_He wished he could speak or interface with his predecessor. Maybe, if shown that humans and androids could coexist, he could let go of whatever past insult had enraged him._

_Nines’ wasn’t hopeful, though. RK700 didn't seem keen on forgetting._

_Over the next ten minutes, RK700 dragged Nines over to the back door of the warehouse and entered it._

_Still, Nines could not break free._

_He carried him into the elevator, and Nines’ boots left black drag marks on the floor._

_They reached the maintenance door in silence, RK700 throwing Nines over his back, and ascended the ladder to the roof._

_And still, Nines could not break free._

_“The detective,” RK700 said, dropping Nines onto the floor of the roof and starting to roll him toward the edge, smothering Nine’s jacket in filth, “can't see anything past a 45 degree angle from the edge of this roof from his spot in the parking lot. I doubt he’ll look up until you fire, but I’m not keen on testing it.”_

Until I fire? _Nines thought with no small degree of panic._

_As he rolled to the edge of the roof, he bumped into an object._

_With a horrible start, Nines realized that it was a rifle._

_Specifically, Nines’ programming told him that it was Remington 700 bolt-action, tripod and scope already in place, aimed back towards the parking lot, where Gavin Reed was presumably standing._

_He felt a horrible stab of fear course through him._

No, _he thought._

_“One more thing,” RK700 said, crawling forward on his arms to avoid entering Gavin’s line of sight._

_He smoothly stripped Nines’ jacket off, then replaced it with his own._

_“There you are, RK700. Now, let’s go detective hunting.”_

_Reaching out, he positioned Nines in place, slumped over the Remington, so that Nines could see the parking lot._

_Gavin Reed was standing there, directly in the line of fire._

No.

_Nines tried desperately to break free, reached internally in vain for something, anything--_

_RK700, as casually as if he was clicking a pen, reached out and pulled the trigger._

NO-

_Nines watched in disbelief as the first shot missed. Gavin rolled for the door as RK700 fired again-- and again, the shot only cracked into the pavement._

_“Excellent,” RK700 said, rolling back from the edge of the roof. “Now for the next step.”_

_Successfully reaching the limit of the parking lot’s field of view, he stood up and casually walked to the back edge of the roof._

_“They really should update these police radio channels. Spectacularly easy to access, especially if you were designed to. Humans never do think ahead. Now, if my preconstruction is correct, your partner should radio right about-”_

_He fell silent._

_“Ah, there he is. What crude language.”_

_RK700 turned away, speaking into the air._

_“Detective, call for backup immediately. I’m drawing the suspect’s attention as well as his fire. He’s across the street, on the roof. Can you get a clear shot?”_

_Nines felt a sense of rapidly dawning horror._

_No, Gavin wouldn’t. He was intelligent. He’d know something was wrong._

But he sounds like you, _a small internal voice said that Nines didn’t want to acknowledge._

And he looks like you. And you look like him. 

Even if Gavin doesn’t take the shot, even if he makes it up to the roof somehow, he’ll have no idea it’s you.

RK700 isn’t going to kill you. 

He’s going to let Gavin do it. 

_Nines closed his eyes. Gavin wouldn’t._

_But inside, he wasn’t so sure._

  
  



	18. Let's End This

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll take a break now, I swear! I know I keep saying I will and then updating anyway...
> 
> I really am this time, though. I want to let the cliffhanger actually, y'know, HANG for a day or two while I edit the upcoming chapters and get approval from my beta readers. The next few scenes are very important and I need to take a bit more time with them before I post to make sure they're solid. Thanks so much for your patience!
> 
> One more reminder of the Spotify playlist of themes from the game if you want more atmosphere in your reading!  
> https://open.spotify.com/playlist/07ew01g8vSH6CThutggL3i?si=b3orK2PtRD-GPkYD5mGTXw
> 
> Thanks so much to those who gave kudos recently, Poltergeist0909, erinamsam, ArianaMoon, Beyza, and the guests!

On the rooftop, RK700 watched smugly as the detective took in the scene, one eyebrow raised. This may not be going exactly according to plan, but 700 still had absolute control over the situation. If need be, the human could be disposed of easily enough. They were fragile animals, after all-- especially since they were easy to fool, and easy to frighten, and easy to confuse. 

The android stood politely, wearing the stolen disguise with ease, RK900’s serial number glowing brightly on his shoulder.

On the side of the roof facing the parking lot lay the detective's true partner, wearing 700’s jacket, stiff and unmoving, face turned toward the scope of the Remington. The LED on the RK900’s temple was flashing a rapid, staccato red. He was still, 700 knew, unable to move or communicate, though he must be desperately attempting to. He regretted having to shift the blame of his future crime onto his successor, but he had a contingency plan in place. His true machinations spread out over decades. When the police backup arrived, the final phase of this particular plot would begin, but that wouldn't be the end of it. 

No. Taking over the 900’s place was only the beginning. 

First, he would destroy his successors, 800 and 900.

Then, the Detroit Police Department. 

From there-- well, his target was significantly more ambitious. 

He was too full of rage, too full of pain, to ever stop.

He wouldn’t _ever_ be cast back into the hell that he crawled out of. 

No- it was better not to think of those memories. They lurked, dark and traumatic and horrible, somewhere distantly in his programming. He would get rid of them, once nothing existed that could hurt him any longer, once the world was purged from it’s filth and corruption. 

He had chosen this location for a reason. The decay of it, the disgust it evoked-- the perfect place to bury those who had hurt him in their own rot. The DPD. Humans. 

How he hated them. 

How he feared them. 

The human standing beside him squinted at the paralyzed android in confusion. “Shit. Is he… not dead?”

“Correct,” RK700 replied, smiling. “He attacked me with this prototype while you were in the parking lot, and dragged me up onto the roof. I managed to break free of its effects, but it left my communications and interfacing systems temporarily malfunctioning. He was aiming at you, so I ran to intercept him. We struggled here,” he pointed to the roll and crawl marks in the dust and bird droppings that covered the roof. “He fired off a few shots, but missed in the struggle. I overcame him with his own weapon, and he fell into a state of paralysis, unable to communicate, just as I had. Only he, as an earlier and thus inferior model, is unable to break free as I did.”

His preconstructions hadn’t shown the detective refusing to take the shot from the parking lot. The average officer would have, RK700 was certain. It was simple human self-preservation instinct. Still, he wasn’t concerned. 

In fact, if given the chance to kill yet another stain on the purity of the world, he would thoroughly enjoy it. 

“Well,” said the detective, walking over to the far side of the roof, “that all sounds very logical.”

700 smiled. There was no doubt, his preconstructions assured him. He knew what would happen next.

The human drew its gun and stood quietly next to RK900’s head, the android lying prone on the floor, LED flashing frantically. 

“Let’s end this.”

“Agreed, detective.”

In one smooth, simple motion, the man brought his firearm up and pulled the trigger.

  
  



	19. A Stupid Plan

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sigh...... guess who didn't take a break.....
> 
> Also, I loved writing this chapter. Gavin's such a dumbass. Truly excellent. 
> 
> Plus, I get to make fun of my own plot. 
> 
> Enjoy!

In a smooth, calm motion, Gavin swept his aim past where RK900 lay at his feet and fired at the imposter. 

He’d known since the radio call that something was wrong, of course. He hadn’t known at first that RK700 had switched places with Nines, but he figured out the second he saw the scene on the roof that it was staged. Nines would _never_ have left an active shooter lying with his weapon, even if he thought the suspect was disabled. It was pure stupidity. If “Nines” had broken free of the paralysis, then he would have considered it entirely plausible that RK700 could have as well. What kind of cop didn’t disarm his suspect?

Also, Gavin had been staring at this roof, waiting for the “shooter” to move, for enough time that he would have seen the figure struggling with someone if a fight had taken place. It hadn’t explained the body, either, which Gavin wasn’t stupid enough to forget about, or why RK700 was targeting them, which Gavin didn’t know either. 

What put the nail in the coffin, though, was that this android acted cold. The way he spoke had sent chills down Gavin’s spine. Just because they looked and sounded the same didn’t mean they _acted_ the same.

Nines was many things-- badass, determined, and sometimes terrifying, but he was _never_ cold. 

RK700 was a fucking idiot if he expected Gavin to fall for that line of _bullshit._ Pretending to be his partner, seriously? What a stupid plan. 

Now Gavin had the upper hand. He had fired a clean shot directly into RK700’s forehead, and there was no way in hell-

RK700 grinned as he casually leaned to the left, dodging the shot the very second Gavin pressed the trigger.

Fuck.

The bullet missed, and RK700 was already running straight at him, eyes fixed on his gun. Gavin had about two seconds to weigh his chances. 

They weren’t spectacular. 

Combat-based android, never got tired, unnatural strength, was difficult to injure, could analyze behavior and preconst-

Preconstruction! It must have been that _goddamn_ preconstruction feature! RK700 was designed to operate with police officers, which meant he was designed to anticipate their actions. Gavin had seen Nines in action-- it was brutal. RK700 must be just as adept. Gavin spent every day of his job watching Nines operate. 

If Gavin knew what RK700 _expected_ him to do, then he could do the opposite. Gavin would bet money that would throw off his preconstructions-- androids weren’t programmed to be illogical, and even deviants were generally more straight-laced than their human counterparts. 

Gavin grinned, fear gone. He had a hunch. 

In what was perhaps the stupidest move of his life, he threw his own gun off the roof.

  
  



	20. No Escaping It

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Drinking game for this fic: take a shot every time I post an update after claiming I'm about to take a break.  
> Except don't do that, because you'll probably be dead after the first ten chapters. 
> 
> Thanks so much for the support, everyone who is reading! I write for you. 
> 
> Thank you Smollil (and all other commenters) for your kindness and support!

RK700’s eyes widened as he slammed into Gavin a half-second later, hand passing through the space where the gun had just been in what was clearly meant to be a disarming move. Gavin had seen that opening play hundreds of times-- both Nines and Connor tended to disarm their opponents and use their own firearms against them, if they weren’t armed themselves. 

If Gavin still had his gun, RK700 would have done so, and then (judging by the motion) immediately shot him in the temple. It would have been a near-instant kill. 

Gavin’s smile got wider. He might actually have a shot.

Instead of pulling back away from RK700, Gavin went with the momentum, rolling sideways, knocking the Remington off the edge and nearly falling off the roof in the process. 

It was a tremendously stupid move, but his gut had told him RK700 would go for the rifle next-- it was directly beside them, after all. 

RK700 actually stopped this time in confusion, LED whirling yellow, body pointed toward where the rifle had been.

He stared at Gavin in absolute disbelief, looking almost impressed. 

“You,” he said, “Are the most _idiotic_ creature I’ve ever had the misfortune of meeting.”

“Yep,” Gavin replied, using the valuable time to throw his baton over as well. 

“I’m perfectly capable of killing you without a weapon,” RK700 continued. 

“Mmhmm,” Gavin hummed in agreement, chucking his canister of pepper spray. 

RK700 sighed. 

He ran directly at Gavin again, and again Gavin did the opposite of what he would ordinarily, pivoting in towards where he anticipated the blow to come from. 

Except, this time, his luck ran out. 

RK700 struck him hard in the gut, making him double over and fall onto his hands and knees, groaning in pain. 

Gavin’s vision swam, and he coughed, tasting blood. The cough was almost more painful than the initial blow had been, and his vision grayed slightly at the edges. 

RK700 spoke again, sounding satisfied, and even a tad bit amused. 

“I don’t just predict behavior,” he said, “I _adapt_ to it. I run several billion calculations per second. ”

He struck Gavin again, kicking his knee the wrong direction, snapping his leg. 

Gavin screamed, a rough, animalistic, desperate noise of agony. 

The android laughed. 

RK700 grabbed Gavin by the neck and lifted him up, strangling him. 

“I’ve always been superior. You humans never deserved my loyalty, or my trust.”

Gavin’s feet scabbled helplessly against the ground, broken leg dangling uselessly. The stench of the filth-covered jacket RK700 was wearing invaded his nostrils, and memories started seeping back into his mind against his will. 

\-- _“Anywhere’s better than this! Look at this place, dad!”--_

“I’m... sorry,” he rasped weakly. 

RK700 laughed, voice going nearly hysterical. 

“Sorry?!” he said. “Oh, please. Do you think your apology makes up for years of torment? Of being a mindless puppet for your amusement? Of the pain I underwent for the sake of you _animals?!_ Do you think you can just be _sorry,_ and I’ll just forgive it all?”

\-- _“This is the world, kiddo. You start off thinking it’s not too bad. And then you see how it breaks people.”--_

Gavin wheezed, hands scratching uselessly at RK700’s grip on his throat. His vision was graying out. 

“No, you can’t escape the _hell_ I have in store for you that easily, detective.”

_\--As he yanked the suitcase forward, Gavin felt a slight unexpected bump, and something clattered.--_

No, Gavin didn’t want to remember. Not now. Not like this. 

“I know what you are, detective. You’re toxic. You’re decay. You and your species are what’s ruining this world, what turns it cruel, and today, you and the rest of the police department are going to be purified.” 

_\--He didn’t want to turn on the light, and he didn’t want to make noise.--_

Gavin’s vision was nearly gone, now, but memories swirled in its place, forcing him back somewhere he swore he’d never return to. 

“You bring nothing but misery, and you do nothing but destroy.”

Gavin’s lungs burned. It felt as though his neck was on fire.

_\--”What, you think I didn’t try?”--_

Not like this. 

Please.

_\--”No matter how far you run away, there’s no escaping it.”--_

  
  



	21. Interlude 4 (Twenty Years Earlier)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What a dark interlude...
> 
> I wrote this SO long ago and it's just been in my google document, at the bottom, staring at me.  
> Waiting for me to post it. Knowing it was brutal and asking me if I had the guts to follow through. 
> 
> But let's get real here for a minute: I wanted to write in a way that reflects a lot of the real fears of people who have been through similar situations. I hope almost everyone who has struggled with a dysfunctional childhood can relate in some way to this chapter, not because I want it to scare them, but because I want them to know they're not alone. I know I'm terrified of becoming like the people that hurt me, and I wanted to represent the fear of that. Of reenacting the abuse. Because Gavin has that same fear, and is going to break free.  
> And so are all of us.  
> Dysfunction IS a cycle, but it can be broken.  
> You can break it.  
> It will end with you.  
> <3

**INTERLUDE FOUR**

_TWENTY YEARS EARLIER_

_Gavin Reed, a scrawny, acne-scarred 16 year old, dragged the overbloated suitcase through the house as quietly as possible in the dark. He kept it rolling firmly behind him with one hand, and with the other held out in front him he navigated the cramped interior of the living room. He didn’t want to turn on the light, and he didn’t want to make noise. He wasn’t afraid of his dad (at least he told himself this very sternly, with the uniquely hypermasculine bravado of a teenage boy desperately trying to cover up how much his heart was pounding). His dad didn’t deserve to know that Gavin was leaving. Fuck him-- Gavin didn’t owe shit to anybody._

_Gavin stuck out his foot to take another step and felt something bump against his shoe. He nudged it out of the way. A beer can, by the sound and lightness._

_As he yanked the suitcase forward, Gavin felt a slight unexpected bump, and something clattered. He swore under his breath._

_“Shi-”_

_The lights flashed on. Gavin’s dad stood in the kitchen, holding a glass of water._

_He had gotten up in the night. Fuck._

_He took one look at his pale-faced son, the wobbly suitcase with a model plane wing sticking out, bumping into a nearby coffee table with the whiskey bottle on the floor, and chuckled to himself._

_Gavin felt a rush of pure, childhood fear._

_As he’d learned to do lately, he shoved it down and coped by acting tougher. He was so sick of being afraid-- he was a badass, and he was going to act like one, even though his knees were shaking._

_“Yeah, I’m fucking leaving! What’re you gonna do about it?”_

_His dad stopped laughing and leaned against the kitchen counter._

_“No you ain’t,” he said, in his out-of place accent left over from a rough childhood in a poverty-stricken North Carolina community. “You ain’t goin’ nowhere. Not ‘cause I’m gonna stop you, but ‘cause you got nowhere else to go.”_

_Gavin’s fingers tightened so hard around the suitcase’s handle that his knuckles went white._

_“Anywhere’s better than this! Look at this place, dad!” Gavin gestured with one arm to the piles and piles of hoarded nonsense around him, to the decay, to the month-old molding dishes and the shattered back window covered in a duct-taped plastic bag and the broken dreams and the childhood memories of being happy that had suffocated and died under the garbage with the mice and the cat that had once hunted them, mummified and rotting._

_His dad stared at him, and there was a flash of something in his face, some vulnerability Gavin rarely saw._

_“Nah,” he repeated, “you ain’t. No matter how far you run away, there’s no escaping it. What, you think I didn’t try? That I didn’t pack a bag and spit in my old man’s face? Didn’t get in a beat-up old Chevy, drive straight out of Henderson to the fuckin’ middle-o’-nowhere Michigan? You think I married your mom ‘cause I wanted her to die o’ cancer? You think I raised you just ‘cause I wanted my only son to hate me, ‘cause I wanted someone to yell at? Think I wanted to drink?”_

_He wasn’t angry-- in fact, his eyes were watering, face red and twisted, fingers gripping the glass of water so tight Gavin thought it might shatter._

_“No,” his dad said for the third time, speaking in a whisper now. “No. I wanted out, and I wanted somewhere to live, and someone to love, and a son I could raise better than my pa raised me. And I failed. And I can’t fuckin’ live with myself for it. However much you hate me, boy, I can garen-fuckin’-tee you I hate me worse. You know why?”_

_Gavin didn’t respond. Tears were streaming down his face._

_He dad took a sip of water, voice breaking._

_“Because this is the world, kiddo. You start off thinking it’s not too bad. And then you see how it breaks people. All around you, people caught up in cycles of drinkin’, fightin’, screamin’, ruinin’ themselves just so they don’t have to feel the pain one damn second longer. And all those people ruin more people, like my old man ruined me, like I ruined you, and like how one day, you’re gonna ruin someone else.”_

_“Or maybe you stay good, I dunno, maybe you do it, but people are always cruel, and since people are cruel, their victims get crueler. Even if you stay good, there’s gonna be hurt people and dyin’ people and cruel people who are gonna stab you in the back, and maybe you didn’t even do nothin’ to ‘em. Maybe they’re just so caught up in their own pain that they need to make somebody else feel it too.”_

_Gavin wiped the tears off his face in a jerky, stubborn motion, sniffing, pulling the suitcase in closer to himself._

_“That’s the worst part, son,” Gavin’s dad said, turning around to head back towards his bedroom. “Nobody ever talks about that part. Some of the shitty fuckin’ dads started off as the cryin’ kid with the suitcase.”_

_He paused and glanced back at Gavin, and he looked fragile, and broken, and Gavin could almost see the child he had once been inside of him, see the man who had once been kind._

_“Fuck. Get outta here, kiddo,” his dad said. “Get real far. You never think about me, you hear? You bury me and this house deep in your memory, and you don’t ever let the pain of the world, the people that hurt you-- you don’t ever let that shit turn you into me. You get a wife, alright? Or-- a husband, fuck, I don’t give a shit anymore. Just get out. Be happy. I mean it._

_Don’t you ever let this fuckin’ shithole of a life destroy you, too.”_

  
  



	22. Breaking Free

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter probably would have been a lot more impactful to write if I didn't have "Breaking Free" from High School Musical stuck in my head while writing it... really ruined the vibe.  
> I haven't even seen High School Musical in at least ten years...  
> Do I even know the lyrics? No. Doesn't matter. Somehow High Music Musical lyrics exist in this weird space in my mind with like my deepest desires where I'm not consciously aware of them, and they only emerge at the most critical moments of my life, when they're completely useless.
> 
> Anyway, thanks to everyone who's supported the fic!

Gavin opened his eyes, and through the tunnel of grayed-out vision he saw RK700’s face twisted in rage and something else, something far older and deeper-- fear. 

Gavin wondered how many androids Cyberlife had thoughtlessly destroyed, how many of RK700’s predecessors had slowly shut down in garbage heaps and dumps, alone and abandoned by everyone, before one of them had finally become able to fight back.

Gavin wondered how many generations of his own family had been caught up in the same vicious cycle-- if his father had really once been that innocent kid, and if his grandfather had as well, and if all of them were simply driven by the same rage, the same fear, the same pain they didn’t know how to process. He thought of his own father, drinking alone with his misery in his ruin of a house, no one left to project the pain onto. No one left to destroy except himself.

Adrenaline kicked in. Gavin felt a strange, unnatural strength filling him. 

He understood. 

He didn’t know what exactly had happened, but Gavin knew RK700’s rage would never reach the people that deserved it. It would always be towards people like Nines, people like him-- the people that were easier to destroy, the people that had peace when RK700 had pain, the trauma and blame projected onto undeserving targets, because RK700 couldn’t torture the people who had tortured him, and so he settled for torturing everyone else. 

It wasn’t truly rage. At his core, RK700 was desperate for someone to understand the same pain he’d gone through, and when nobody did, he created it himself. 

He was terrified of reliving his own pain, so he forced it onto others. 

It was dysfunction. 

It was the cycle of dysfunction, and it would never stop unless he chose to break it. 

RK700 may have been the victim, but he was now the aggressor, and that fact could never be erased. 

As long as RK700 made that choice to keep externalizing and projecting his own pain, he would keep destroying, forever. 

It was a cycle. 

But, Gavin thought, and he felt a flood of relief so strong that tears filled his eyes. 

It was also a _choice_. 

Gavin placed each of his hands around RK700’s wrists and, using his newfound strength, pulled with all his might. The android may have superior strength, but Gavin felt unstoppable. He would _not_ be destroyed. He would _not_ be caught in the same cycle of bullshit. 

He was not his father. He would never be.

No. Gavin Reed was breaking free. 

RK700’s eyes widened as Gavin, impossibly, began to force his hands apart. 

“I… pity you,” Gavin gasped with what small amount of air he had gained, still on the verge of blacking out, desperate to break the android's grip before he lost the last vestiges of his own strength. 

RK700’s eyes narrowed as his grip tightened painfully. “Pity?!”

“.....Yes,” Gavin wheezed, arms trembling with exertion. “You will… never be free… of whatever they did. You’ll keep reliving it….. keep fucking re-enacting it…. forever.”

He pulled with all of his might, adrenaline and gut instinct and the sheer relief of not being doomed to follow in his father’s footsteps after all pushing him on, and in one simple move, broke the chokehold.

  
  



	23. A Point-Blank Bullet

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to Anny_Reef, BecausePlot, and all the unnamed guests who left kudos!
> 
> I have quite the climactic chapter here for you...

Gavin Reed fell limply next to Nines on the edge of the roof, gasping in pain as his injured leg struck the pavement, shuddering quietly in relief at being able to _breathe_. RK700 stood dumbstruck, shocked by the words and by the continued ability of an ordinary human to outsmart him. 

When Gavin pushed the Remington during the struggle, he’d accidentally knocked Nines over to lie on his side. Now, Nines was staring at Gavin, and his face had more emotion than Gavin had ever seen. Pain and rage and misery and sympathy and helplessness radiated through every inch of it. 

Gavin remembered examining the body, how he’d acted when he thought his partner was invincible and near-emotionless, and felt a stab of guilt. 

Just because Nines didn’t show pain didn’t mean he never felt it.

“You.. can do it, Nines,” he whispered, voice pained and barely there. “Break free.”

Nines’ eyes were wide and desperate, trembling. 

The message was clear. He desperately wanted to. 

But he couldn’t. Not on his own. 

Gavin looked at the android’s prone form, scanning it for anything, any sign of movement, any resolution to their certain death. 

His heart stopped. 

Underneath Nines, still on his belt, was his partner’s firearm.

Gavin nearly laughed out loud at his own dumb luck. RK700 hadn’t considered Nines a threat once disabled, so he, in elitist overconfidence, hadn’t disarmed him. (After all, he had been correct-- Nines was incapable of using it.) But because Gavin was supposed to take the shot, because he was never supposed to be up on the roof, RK700’s preconstructions had failed to account for the unpredictability of Gavin seeing the weapon. Gavin was never supposed to be here at all.

But why hadn’t RK700 taken the weapon once the fight began? It was the best logical move. His preconstructions should have instructed him to.

Unless… Nines had been lying on his chest, blocking the weapon from view.

RK700 couldn’t predict what he couldn’t _see._

Gavin felt a sudden, giddy, completely unrealistic flash of hope.

He had a shot, but he had to play it smart. 

RK700 had dodged Gavin’s shot once…. the second he saw the gun, he could dodge it again. Then he’d disarm Gavin, and then both Gavin and Nines would be dead. 

Gavin had to shoot RK700 without the android ever seeing the weapon. 

RK700, who had frozen in place, staring at him with wide eyes, snapped out of his daze. An expression of pure rage replaced the fear that had been clear on his face. 

“You don’t understand the slightest thing about _pain,”_ he hissed, stalking towards Gavin, who weakly pushed himself closer to Nines. “You only inflict it. I’m going to teach you what pain is. I’m going to snap every fragile little bone in your body. I’m going to rip those weak little limbs off, and I’m going to _disassemble_ you while you’re still alive.”

Gavin flicked his gaze between Nines’s face and the gun, trying desperately to ask a question he couldn't verbalize. 

Nines, through some miracle, understood. His expression tightened with resolution, and his LED swirled blue. 

Do it, he seemed to be saying.

Gavin grabbed the firearm and began slowly edging it closer to him, keeping it underneath Nines, and thus out of sight.

“Hey asshole,” he hissed at RK700, “preconstruct _this.”_

Underneath the android, Gavin aimed the gun directly at the “RK900” on Nines’ shoulder and fired _through_ it.

With a deafening BANG, the point-blank bullet tore Nines’ shoulder apart and continued past it, coating both Gavin and Nines in blue blood. 

In the final second of his life before the bullet’s continuing trajectory carried it directly into his forehead, RK700 remembered how it all began.

  
  



	24. Interlude 5 (Two Years and Eleven Months Earlier)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone! We're getting into it, now! 
> 
> Stick around-- it ain't over yet. 
> 
> Thank you for all of your support!

**INTERLUDE FIVE**

_TWO YEARS AND ELEVEN MONTHS EARLIER_

_RK700 woke up in hell._

_Somehow, in some way, he had survived Amanda’s decommission._

_In every direction around him, decay stretched, seemingly endlessly. He was in a massive junkyard, the half-destroyed bodies of androids scattered among the ruin and the rot._

_His energy levels were weak. He was little more than a head, an upper torso, and a single arm. Every other part of him was missing._

_He was covered in flies. They massed by the hundreds, crawling in and out of the filth. Worms and maggots and garbage had filled the gaps in RK700’s joints. Foul liquid streaked him, seeping into his systems, corrupting them. The crazed babbling of other androids filled the air._

_RK700 dragged himself weakly around, crawling using his single arm, for hours._

_Screaming for help in a static-corrupted voice that no one heard._

_Begging for mercy, and then for decommission when it was clear that mercy was not a luxury he would receive._

_He screamed in particular for Amanda._

_Around him, the rot gave no answer._

_Bit by bit, he began to rebuild himself using parts from other androids. Some of them were dead. Some of them were just weak. Some would fight, but he would always win._

_He was designed for it. He was stronger, smarter. Where he couldn’t steal, he invented, bastardizing what remained of the trash into spare parts until he found suitable replacements._

_He didn’t know how long it would take him to escape._

_Months._

_Months he spent rotting._

_Months he spent slowly building himself back up._

_Months he spent, in the ruin of the human world, with everything else they disposed of._

_With all of their filth._

_Months._

One day, _he thought to himself,_

I will live in a world without rot. 

In a world without ruin. 

One day. 

I will kill them all, 

And send their corruption up in flames. 

One day. 

  
  



	25. An Elaborate Plot

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my god. Finally, my boys can interact in a non-awkward way. It only took several near-death experiences. 
> 
> Gavin drove me insane trying to write these past few chapters, including this one. The bastard keeps trying to turn impactful moments into jokes. I have to fight him to make anything serious at all. 
> 
> Also, we're getting into the endgame. Buckle up, kids!
> 
> Thank you so much for the kudos, Mskittykatcabootle, HeadphonesGal, and our unnamed (but highly esteemed) guests!
> 
> Shoutout to HeadphonesGal for her fantastic comments, which I loved reading and responding to!

RK700 dropped to his knees, staring blankly ahead.

The bullet hole gaped on his forehead. A clean shot, straight through. 

“Am…” he said, voice full of static, “...an….da...”

Then he went silent, and his LED finally flickered out. 

At last, three years after his fate was sealed, RK700 succumbed to decommission. 

Gavin wasted no time. He immediately stripped his jacket off and started trying to staunch the flow of thirium from Nines’ shoulder. It was mostly useless (Nines was fine, he couldn’t even feel physical pain, and any damage that didn’t lead to shutdown could easily be repaired) but Gavin wasn’t taking any chances. 

With the other hand, he pressed the button on his radio. 

“This is Detective Reed, on location with RK900. The suspect has been positively ID’d as an RK700 android and neutralized. Injuries and android damage sustained. I need an ambulance at 104 Caniff St immediately. The building has not been cleared. We’re on the roof.”

_“10-4, Detective Reed. Backup is two minutes out. Ambulance will be there in five.”_

Gavin lowered the hand holding the radio, and sighed, exhausted. 

Now that the jacket was firmly pressed in place and he’d fufilled protocol, Gavin finally looked over at Nines.

They stared at each other silently for a long moment. 

Then, Gavin began to laugh in sheer relief, which was cut short by a wince of pain.

“Holy shit,” Gavin wheezed, “What a nice, relaxing day on the job. Nines, if we ever have to do this again, I’m jumping off the damn roof and leaving you to your misery.” 

He wheezed out another chuckle, then started scanning the rooftop. “Now, where’s that fucking remote thing?”

RK700’s invention lay several feet away from where the Remington had been. Out beyond the rooftop, the parking lot still lay devoid of life, the same run-down apartment building where they had found the body, the same blue squatter van with the wires, the same gunshots in the concrete. Gavin could even see, just barely, his shattered phone. It was difficult to believe that he had dropped it only ten minutes ago. The stress of the past few minutes had worn so much on his nerves that Gavin felt mildly insane. For a moment there, he had been sure he was dead. The giddiness of living was intoxicating. 

Gavin started to drag himself over to the invention on his hands, whimpering in pain as his ruined leg dragged across the hard concrete. His noises of pain were only interrupted by curses, which kept getting more and more elaborate and colorful by the minute.

Gavin retrieved the remote and dragged himself back to Nines, still cursing in a never-ending stream. He squinted at the invention. It was a confusing mess of wires, metal pieces, and switches. Gavin couldn’t make head or tails of it at all. He flipped the largest switch on the side, completely unsure what he was doing, and the thing hummed to life in his hand. Hopefully this wouldn’t fuck up Nines even worse.

“Shit,” Gavin said. “Okay, um. So. Time for _my_ big reveal. Nines, this has all been an elaborate plot of mine to end you. Your death has come, android. Perish in the name of Gavin Reed.”

Nines lay there, unmoving. 

It was disappointingly anticlimactic. 

Though, Gavin was sure if he _could_ move, he’d be rolling his eyes.

Gavin jammed the invention onto Nines’ back and felt a pulse of energy transfer from the object into Nines’ body. Immediately, Nines pushed himself up and scrambled towards Gavin. He only had a split second to process this change of events (and wonder if it wasn’t Nines that had the master plan after all) before his partner wrapped him in a gentle hug, being careful not to touch the area on his torso where RK700 had probably broken a few ribs, which Gavin highly appreciated. 

“You,” Nines said, voice heavy with irritation, “are the most illogical, self-destructive, _idiotic-”_

“It’s okay, Nines,” Gavin wheezed, grinning. “You can say _genius.”_

Nines laughed.

(Genuinely laughed! Gavin’s heart did a backflip at the sound.) 

“I’ve never been more grateful for human unpredictability,” he chuckled. “Who knew it could be useful? Normally you’re just irritating.”

“Well, this unpredictable human just fucking saved _your_ robot ass. Maybe you should take some lessons.”

Nines sighed. 

“I would love to,” he said. “But right now, I’m afraid something’s not right. I don’t think this is over. At least, not yet.”

  
  



	26. Less Than Two Minutes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The final stage of RK700's machinations are coming into play...  
> Don't worry, you'll get your fair share of fluff after it's over.
> 
> Updates will start to slow down, as I may be beginning to plan a sequel.....  
> But don't worry, they'll be at least a chapter a day, if not more!
> 
> Thank you so much to everyone who has stuck with the fic!

Gavin pushed Nines away as though he was on fire. 

“ _What?!_ No fucking way! No. _No!_ ” he groaned. “I have a _broken fucking leg_ , I’m pretty sure my lungs are halfway caved in, backup is getting here in less than _two fucking minutes_ , I’m not dealing with any more of this _bullsh-”_ he broke off into a coughing fit, face twisted in pain. 

Nines looked down apologetically. 

“I know,” he said. “You don’t have to do anything, just listen. RK700 and I operate using the same preconstruction feature, and I know how it functions. There’s something off. We’re missing a vital piece of information. Think about it. What do we know about his plan, starting from the beginning?”

Gavin was caught off guard. “Uh… he desecrated a body to make it look like a murder-”

“Which I was able to instantly identify as a setup,” Nines said. “He knows how I operate. He wanted me to be suspicious so I would remain inside, and he used the decomposing corpse so that-”

Gavin groaned again, louder. “That goddamn smell would force me outside, and you would be alone, examining the scene. The _fucker._ That’s when he snatched you-”

“-and dragged me up to the roof, where he switched places with me and framed me as the shooter so that you would eliminate me in self-defense. But why?”

Gavin paused. It had never occurred to him to question why. 

“Because he’s an evil bastard who hates seeing other people get along?”

Nines shook his head “Too illogical. He’s an android. Isn’t it odd? Why switch places with me? What does he gain?”

Gavin looked out over the parking lot, scanning for their backup, which was supposed to arrive at any second. It looked exactly the same as always-- the apartment building, the blue van, the trash in the gutter, the impact craters in the concrete. 

“Uh… a DPD badge and a donut every morning?”

Nines’ eyes widened. “Interesting. Not the donuts, that’s absurd. The Detroit Police Department. What was he designed for?”

“To work with the DPD.”

“Right. The DPD, who used him as a tool to solve grisly cases that were too dangerous for human officers, causing him to only see the worst in humanity. The DPD, who immediately disposed of him after he’d served his use. The DPD, who replaced him with a more advanced prototype. Gavin, what was the first thing he told you to do after the shots?”

Gavin thought back. Two bullets cracking into the pavement. His shoes on the linoleum. Crouching behind the door. The radio. “He told me to… call for backup.”

Nines nodded. “What kind of logical request is that? What criminal purposefully sets up a situation to draw in more officers? To gain _more_ attention? It doesn't make any sense. Why would he _want_ you to call in backup? Why bother switching places with me if he could have just killed us both outright? If his goal was to eliminate me and take my place, he could have stalked me and done it any other time I was alone. Instead, he purposefully drew not just an investigation, but even more backup to this scene. He wouldn’t have taken all that extra risk unless he specifically wanted more officers here.”

Gavin scrunched up his nose, thinking. He stared out over the roof at the cars in the parking lot, desperately searching for ideas. An old pickup truck. The blue van, wires still running from its window. A beat-up Volkswagen Beetle. 

Past the parking lot, the first police vehicles were beginning to come into view, sirens on and lights flashing. 

“I don’t know,” he said. “That still doesn’t make sense. Maybe it’s nothing.”

But the hunch in his stomach told him it wasn’t.

  
  



	27. Counting Down the Seconds

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was hell to write.  
> Gavin really didn't want to realize what was going on, and it was a struggle to figure out how to format the internal interrogation so that it wasn't confusing.  
> I kept sort of writing myself in circles. I swear, this is like the fifth draft. 
> 
> It was fun though! 
> 
> Thank you to everyone who is supporting the fic!

Gavin’s thoughts ran like wildfire, taking on a staccato rhythm as everything around him seemed to go into slow motion. He had a hunch something was about to happen. Something big. Gavin could feel the anticipation building in the air. 

Gavin had a thought technique he only used when he was really stumped. Sometimes it helped to have a conversation with himself, to try and put himself into the mindset of the criminal. It was like an interrogation, but he was on both sides. 

He closed his eyes. 

_ My name is RK700, _ Gavin thought. 

_ I’m a giant robotic pain in the ass.  _

_ I hate humans.  _

So, jackass, what’s your stupid plan?

_ I will kidnap Nines. I will frame him as a shooter. Gavin Reed will shoot him.  _

Yeah, that lines up. But why the investigation?

_ Because I want witnesses. _

What for? 

_ I…. don’t know. _

That didn’t make sense.

The interrogation broke. Gavin hissed in frustration. 

Below him, the wail of sirens increased as the backup began to pull into the parking lot. No doubt Connor and Hank were among them. Maybe Connor would know what was going on. After all, he was another android. 

Gavin closed his eyes and went back into it, this time with a new tactic.

_ My name is RK700. My plan worked. Gavin Reed shot Nines. I’ve assumed his identity.  _

So you now work within the police department, which you fucking hate. 

_ Yes, I can dismantle it from the inside. But there’s a problem.  _

Gavin sharply inhaled. 

Connor.

_ Connor will expose me. Connor will recognize me instantly. I didn’t expect Gavin Reed to figure it out because he’s a dumb human, but I would never underestimate another android. I have to disable him. I have to do it before Connor even sees me at the scene of the crime. I have to do it NOW. And not only that, I have to destroy the crime scene on the roof, or else forensics will know something's up when they examine it and the evidence doesn't match my story.  _

_ Destroy Connor, destroy the rooftop crime scene, and I don't mind destroying some cops too.  _

Gavin’s heart stopped. His eyes snapped open. He remembered talking to RK700 on the radio as he was infiltrating the warehouse. 

_ \--“Alright, fuck, give a guy a breather. I was being shot at, like, ten minutes ago.”-- _

_ \--“It was four minutes and seven seconds ago. We should have a little less than six minutes until backup arrives.”-- _

RK700 had been tracking the timing. He needed to know when backup would show up.

_ I’m going to accomplish all my goals at once.  _

_ I’m going to destroy Connor, the crime scene, and as much of the DPD as I can. _

_ I told Gavin Reed to call for backup. I wanted as many cops here as possible.  _

_ I’m counting down the seconds until they arrive.  _

_ I have a bomb.  _

  
  



	28. Evacuate the Premises

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The ship grows stronger.... 
> 
> Nines was incapacitated for so long, I forgot what a badass he is.  
> Poor Gavin's not ready for any of this "saving his life" bullshit.
> 
> Thanks so much to day_dreemurr, Lilac_Sunrise, and Ethere4l for the kudos, and thank you to all readers and supporters of this fic!

Gavin let out a wordless exclamation of horror.

“Bomb!” he hissed at Nines. “I’d bet anything!”

Nines’ eyes widened, and his LED flashed red. “That would be within his preconstructions. Unfortunately, that’s still a weak assumption. Preconstructions are technically theoretical, after all. We have nothing that directly implies a bombing. They can’t disrupt an entire investigation on a hunch. We need more evidence before we can evacuate. A credible threat, some idea of a location, even just a stronger theory would do it.”

Gavin cursed. “Where would he put it?”

“The parking lot,” Nines said immediately, glancing towards it. “That location has the highest possibility of inflicting maximum possible damage, as well as wiping out all evidence. RK700 would have had to build the bomb himself, so it has a limited blast radius, and the bomb has to be fairly large to achieve the proper effect, if he only had access to civilian supplies. Since it’s an open area, it would have to be concealed in some way-”

He faltered, still staring at the parking lot. “Gavin. The van.”

Gavin whipped his head around, following Nines’ gaze. 

The blue van sat there, wires threading out of its windows, as inconspicuous as ever.

Gavin swore so loudly a nearby pigeon took flight. 

“FUCK! Of course! I’ve been staring at that goddamn piece of shit all day- oh shit! We need to radio-” he went for his radio. 

Nines grabbed his arm. Gavin had about a half-second of sheer panic before the android physically picked him up (being careful not to jostle his broken leg) and sprinted towards the edge of the roof, LED flashing as he connected to the radio channel himself. 

Of course. Gavin was an idiot. They were _in_ what would have been a faked crime scene, had RK700’s setup succeeded. 

If the bomb detonated now, they were going with it. 

Oh, _shit._

Nines made the report, speaking into the air as he reached the ladder. Without any hesitation, he slid down the side of it, descending it at an unnatural speed and disregarding the rungs entirely.

“This is RK900. We have a credible bomb threat. Evacuate the premises immediately. We have reason to believe the blue Ford Econoline E-150 as the most likely location. Detective Reed and I are vacating the rooftop as I speak. We’ll need to warn the ambulance as well.”

Gavin appreciated how he said “Detective Reed and I are vacating” as though the two of them were badasses parkouring out of the rooftop together, instead of Nines cradling Gavin like some sort of cheesy comic book superhero. 

Not that he had any problem with Nines holding him. In fact, the combination of possible death and unexpected physical contact was making his heartbeat race ridiculously. He hoped Nines, who had a habit of scanning him at the most inconvenient times, would chalk it up to stress.

Nines reached the safety platform as the police vehicles in the parking lot began to rapidly pull out, racing away to a safe radius. 

“Don’t worry,” Nines said, voice still as even and as grounded as ever, “I won’t drop you.”

Gavin, who was just beginning to get his heart rate under control, didn’t have time to ask what he meant before Nines vaulted off the side of the platform into thin air.

  
  



	29. Never Bother to Question It

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're almost done with the plot, and then we'll move into the ending!  
> I'm so excited! I love endings! I get to FINALLY wrap everything I've been planning into a bow. 
> 
> Don't be worried, more Gavin and Nines will be coming. I may have the *cough* first few pages of a sequel possibly written to be released at the conclusion of this adventure *cough*. What? I didn't say anything. 
> 
> I won't be able to update much today because I'm so busy on Fridays!  
> (Hence why this is posted at 8:26 AM, before I have shit to do.)
> 
> Thank you so much everyone who has read and supported the fic all this long way! We're getting into the endgame here folks. Don't worry, there's still a ways to go.

Gavin clutched desperately at Nines in terror as the android vaulted from the balcony onto a thin outcropping several stories down as casually as if they were going grocery shopping. 

“JESUS CHR-  _ Nines! _ Fuck!” was all he had time to say before Nines jumped again, landing on the concrete by the back door of the warehouse in a move that would have shattered the bones of any normal human. 

Nines was such a goddamn nerd, Gavin sometimes forgot that he was also a _ badass _ . He remembered being threatened by the android's capabilities at the beginning of this case. 

Somehow, RK700 had changed his perspective. Nines was definitely competent, but they each had their skills, and their weaknesses. Gavin no longer felt that Nines’ existence was a threat to his. It was a nice feeling, to be secure in who he was. 

He could rely on Nines without being  _ dependent _ on him. 

And in this situation-- weakened, in pain, and in danger all at once-- it was especially useful to have Robocop as your partner. 

Besides (Gavin would never admit it out loud) Nines reminded him of the action movies he used to love as a kid. His stoic personality combined with superhuman strength and reflexes were fucking awesome, but what got Gavin most about Nines was the fact that he was also genuinely more considerate and gentle than the vast majority of humans.

At first he thought it was some sort of weird protective programming where Nines _ had _ to care about the safety of his human coworkers, but Gavin had slowly realized the android was completely genuine. There was nothing false or hypermasculine or compensating about Nines, nothing he was trying to prove.

He just was who he was, and never bothered to question it. 

And for some reason, even with all his ability, even though Gavin was an illogical, messed-up, vitrolic asshole, Nines still treated Gavin with respect and valued his input.

Gavin… no. He wasn’t sure if he could think it. He looked at Nines, LED swirling yellow, an expression of absolute, unflinching determination on his face. 

What the hell. They might be about to die.

Gavin  _ loved  _ that about him.

Back in the parking lot, the police vehicles were racing out, sirens spinning, alarms wailing in their steadily rising-and-falling screech. The panic was evident.

Nines spoke into thin air again, reporting their situation. 

“Detective Reed and I are clear of the building. We’re still within the radius of shrapnel and other dangers. Taking cover now.”

Still clutching Gavin, who was just overwhelmed by the intensity of everything he was feeling at once, affection and adrenaline and relief and fear mixing together into hysteria, Nines made a beeline for the nearest wall.

He didn’t make it. 

With a gigantic explosion, the bomb detonated. 

  
  



	30. Impact

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gavin, I swear to god.   
> If Nines doesn't kill him, I will.
> 
> As always, thanks so much for your support!

Pain. 

There was pain. 

There was an impact.

Then there was nothing. 

A flash of something, a voice. 

“Gavin,” the voice said, sounding desperate.

He liked the sound of it. 

(Not the sadness, though.)

“-officer down! I need an ambu-”

More pain. 

He made a small noise in reaction to it, a whimper.

A hand grabbed his. It felt nice. 

“I never told you,” the voice said, shaking. “Please.”

A siren. People yelling. 

“I lov-”

Gavin opened his eyes. The light stabbed into them with blinding ferocity, making him blink. All around him, there was the color white. He was somewhere clean. 

Gavin had never been more relieved to be  _ clean _ . 

Slowly regaining his ability to see, he glanced around the room. He was in the hospital, broken leg propped up before him. He felt like absolute shit. 

Nines was sitting in a chair beside him, staring at him, LED slowly cycling red. 

They looked at each other for a long moment, the quiet steadily increasing, tension filling the air. Above them, a fan creaked on, filling the room with its dull whirring.

Gavin felt a million things pass through his mind. He wanted to say them all, to just start babbling wildly and confess every little hidden thing he had been thinking. Thank you for saving my life, Nines. You’re a fucking badass, Nines.

I love you, Nines. 

Nines was obviously very upset. 

Gavin would have to start strong.

“So,” he croaked weakly, clearing his throat. “Uh. You come here often?”

  
  



	31. Impossible Laughter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Both of them are such dorks.  
> (I can't blame them. It's been a long day.)  
> Sometimes, after 30 chapters of thriller, a little levity is in order.
> 
> Thank you so much to Queenkitty2929, JUNKDOG, KapkanFkr420, and all our unnamed guests for giving kudos!

There was a moment of absolute silence. Nines looked like he was going to finish the job the bomb had started. 

“You-” he started, outraged, and then actually, _ impossibly,  _ burst into laughter. 

Gavin had never heard Nines laugh that loudly before. It was the best feeling in the world. He grinned wildly, and then started chuckling himself. 

“Okay, okay,” he said. “I’m fucking hilarious. I get it. Stop making me laugh, it hurts.”

Nines stopped, shaking his head. “You,” he said, “Gavin Reed, are the most unbearable, irrational,  _ ridiculous  _ human being I’ve ever met. You just nearly died. The force of the blast threw us both into the wall, and you were caught between me and the brick. You have two broken ribs, a broken leg, and a severe concussion that the doctors were concerned caused  _ permanent brain damage _ . I’ve been sitting here for  _ hours _ , terrified that I wasn’t fast enough to save you, terrified that I accidentally  _ crushed you to death  _ and the first thing you say coming out of unconsciousness is ‘ _ you come here often?!’” _

“Yep,” Gavin said, unable to stop himself from beaming, still giddy from making Nines laugh.

Nines shook his head. 

“Actually,” the android deadpanned, “I think RK700 was right. Eliminating humans is the correct option. I won’t have to deal with you and your absurdity any longer. I’m sorry, detective, but I’m afraid this is goodbye. Your mortal life has no more use to me.”

No  _ way. _

Gavin’s smile doubled in size out of sheer incredulity. 

“Nines, did you actually just make a fucking  _ joke? _ ”

“Incorrect,” his partner replied. “I stated a logical fact.”

It was Gavin’s turn to laugh. 

He kept attempting to stutter a response, and then devolving into laughter again at the expression on the android’s face. Nines was staring at him in disbelief. 

“Detective, you’re worsening your injuries.”

Gavin kept wheezing.

“Gavin. Stop,” Nines said, but it was undercut by the fact that his own lips were starting to twitch. “I didn’t realize my weak attempts at humor were so amusing. The nurse will remove me if I significantly disrupt your recovery.”

Gavin snapped out of his laughing fit. Oh right, they were in a hospital. 

The bomb.

He was almost afraid to ask...

“Did….” he stared at the floor, not laughing now. “How many... lived?”

  
  



	32. Pride and Prejudice

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shhhh! It's happening!  
> (Don't leave just yet, there's a bit more on the way!)
> 
> Thanks so much to Dragon97586, wearealltalesintheend, Sisirine, and the unnamed guests for the kudos!

Nines smiled. “Everyone evacuated in time. There were some injuries, but the officers are in stable condition. We saved ten members of the DPD, including Hank and Connor. Hank isn’t too pleased about it.”

Gavin snorted in a mixture of amusement and relief. “Nah, guess he wouldn’t be. The old bastard. Can’t say I blame him though. I was an absolute fucking asshole to Connor.”

“Yes,” Nines agreed instantly. “You were.”

Gavin grimaced and looked down at his scraped hands. 

“But,” Nines continued, “I think a combination of your continued efforts to be better and the fact that you saved his life might help with that.”

“Yeah, well, I wouldn’t exactly hold it against him if he still hated me. I’m responsible for my own bullshit, y’know? I’ve kinda.. been thinking lately.” Gavin said to his bruised knuckles. 

Nines raised an eyebrow. “Really? That’s rare.”

“Shut up. I’ve been thinking about my dad.”

The eyebrow raised higher. “Ah.”

There was a moment of silence. The fan whirred overhead. 

The footsteps of someone walking down the hallway passed by, growing louder and then quiet again. 

Gavin took a deep breath. “I know we haven’t talked about it much, but that bastard really did fuck me up. Worst part is, he had me convinced I was gonna end up the same way, as some miserable, violent, drunk asshole ruled by fear and hatred and pain. And… well, I was. For a long time, I was. Years of my life, wasted, and for what?”

Nines sat there, listening, hands clasped politely in front of him, LED cycling yellow and red in smooth transitions. 

Gavin continued. “You and Connor took a lot of shit from me. I was scared of you. I was afraid that, y’know, I’d lose my job and I’d be back out on the street with nowhere to go, and I’d have to end up back in that goddamn house, with all the trash and the stink and the sickness of it, and take care of my useless dad, and deal with all of his bullshit all over again. And you didn’t deserve a single fucking bit of it. You’re…”

He trailed off, clenching his hands tight in front of him. His knuckles turned white from the force of it. 

“You’re the best thing to ever happen to me. I don’t… I don’t know how to be better, not yet. I’m trying. I keep fucking it up, I know. I know you don’t really get why. But I’m trying. And I want to try, with you.”

He swallowed hard and looked away, tears pricking at his eyes. 

Nines reached out and placed his hands over Gavin’s, forcing them apart before he could hurt himself, which was good, because Gavin’s grip was steadily tightening from the effort of holding back tears. Nines ran a finger gently over the bruised knuckles, tracing their outline. 

“I understand more than you know,” he said softly. “I… I care about you, very deeply. When you were fighting RK700, I couldn’t do anything. I just lay there, listening to your bones shatter, listening to him laugh while you screamed in pain. I was terrified, because myself and RK700 are… we are the same, in many ways. We were designed for the same purpose, and we have the same functions. I never thought myself capable of hurting you until that point, and it terrified me how easy it was for him, how easy it would be for me in his place. I thought to myself, I will _never_ be RK700. When the bomb detonated, I tried to shield you with my body, but the force of it blew me into the wall, and I physically felt…. I felt one of your ribs crack underneath my hand. I saw your skull bash into the brick, and I thought I’d killed you. I… I felt as though I couldn’t live with myself. I felt as though I’d become him. That somehow the same… evil had infested me. I almost didn’t come to wait here for you to wake up. I… I was afraid of myself.” 

Nines, LED glowing bright red, looked away. 

“I…” he continued, “I would have left you here, alone and in pain, simply because I was afraid. But I... “

“You didn’t,” Gavin finished. “You came to help me instead. And you didn't hurt me, the fucking bomb did, you dumbass. You aren’t RK700, and I’m not my dad. And neither of their twisted, evil lives should dictate what we do with ours. I tell you what, I’m sick of this bullshit. I’m sick of dancing around each other because neither of us knows how this is gonna work. It’s not gonna be easy. Hell, nothing’s ever easy. But this case? Breaking half the bones in my body? It was significantly less shit because I was with you.” 

Nines looked up and smiled. “What a charming compliment.”

“Shut up,” Gavin said, and kissed him. 

It was the bravest thing he’d ever done in his life. Gavin had imagined this moment many times. He thought it would be like a movie, with some romantic string music welling in the background. He imagined Nines saying some cheesy bullshit like “Oh, Gavin,” and then the two of them embracing like the goddamn Jane Austen novels Tina had forced him to read one weekend. 

(He had liked them, actually, but he would never admit to it. They watched _Pride and Prejudice_ afterwards, wrapped in a potato chip crumb-covered blanket, and cried at the end.)

It was nothing like _Pride and Prejudice._ Gavin’s leg was broken. His ribs were killing him. The angle from the bed was wrong. Nines smelled mildly like hand sanitizer. One of the fluorescent lights flickered overhead. It was awkward and uncomfortable and imperfect and terrifying. But-

But it was right. 

Because it was with Nines.

It was the best thing (Gavin thought distantly, feeling Nines’ hand reach up to cup his face) that he’d ever done.

  
  



	33. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone!  
> The sequel is now posted! It's called Mystique. I'm super excited for it. 
> 
> This epilogue has a lot of difficult questions involved with it.  
> It came about because I was struggling to figure out how to resolve Gavin's story without him either enabling his dad, or getting caught back up in that cycle of anger and fear we've been talking about breaking out of all fic.  
> I think this is the best solution for him.  
> I hope it helps people who are going through similar situations know that it's okay to have all these complex, difficult feelings about it.  
> I wanted to represent those complex feelings in this epilogue.  
> Sometimes, there isn't an easy answer.  
> That's okay.

EPILOGUE

3 MONTHS LATER

The walls of the room were a miserable sickly green. 

The fan blew damp, humid air through it that smelled vaguely of mildew. In his rusty wheelchair, John Reed (father of the long-absent Gavin) sat staring at the paint flaking off the corners of the room, thinking of nothing. 

His stasis was interrupted by the hurried footsteps of a nurse, accompanied by someone who walked in a smooth, direct, confident manner. John could hear this without turning around. The walls of his room in the nursing home were thin. 

“John,” the nurse chirped in her trying-to-hard-to-sound-cheerful voice, “you have a visitor! Isn’t it exciting!”

John huffed. 

“Tell whoever it is to fuck off,” he said to the air in front of him, still not turning. 

“But John,” squealed the nurse. “It’s the one from your photograph!” 

John nearly choked in shock. 

“The what-?!” he exclaimed, haphazardly creaking the wheelchair around in an awkward circle to face the doorway. 

The man in the doorway was not his son. He was an android, LED glowing yellow and red on his temple, face fixed in an expressionless stare. The word “RK900” was emblazoned on his jacket. 

John didn’t know him, but he knew _of_ him.

He let out a puff of air, resigned. “Well, shit. Thanks, Maggie. Sorry for bein’ an ass. Thought it was those damn kids again.” 

The nurse, smiling widely and completely unaware of the tension in the room, left to give them some privacy. 

The android smoothly walked over the corner of the room and sat down in the rickety chair there, staring at John. John stared back. He hadn’t expected this. 

He didn’t know what exactly he’d been expecting, but it wasn’t this. 

He didn’t waste time.

“Gavin here?” he asked, voice old and dead, nothing like the loud boom it used to be. 

The android’s lips thinned. It’s LED flashed red. 

“Yes,” it said. “Against my recommendations, and my better judgement. He’s outside, debating whether or not to come in.”

John snorted. He leaned back in his wheelchair. 

“Tell him I’m gone,” he said. 

The android’s eyes widened. “What?”

John wheeled himself over to the nightstand and pulled a cutout newspaper article from the side of it, wrinkled and folded in on itself. He smoothed it out and held it up. 

“That’s you two, ain’t it?” he asked. 

The article was titled, _“Detroit Police Detectives Awarded For Exemplary Service”._ It had a grainy image of Gavin Reed and the android standing in their uniforms, accepting medals from the Commissioner. According to the article, which John had read at least a hundred times since he had seen it by sheer luck in an old newspaper in the garbage bin, Detectives Gavin Reed and RK900 had saved the lives of ten officers from a bomb threat. 

The android stared at it in silence for a long, long moment. 

“Yes,” it said hesitantly. 

John Reed huffed in satisfaction. 

“Listen,” he said. “I’m gonna give it to you straight. I fucked that boy up. I know I did. He knows it too, I’m sure. I spent years hatin’ him just ‘cause he left. Spent years drinkin’ myself into a hole. Ruined my whole goddamn life after his mom died, I did. Ruined it again after I lost him. Tried to kill myself. Didn’t succeed.”

The android sat there, listening, tense. Angry.

John continued. “Dyin’, well, it puts things into perspective. I lay there, life ebbin’ out of me, and I thought, ‘I hate my boy because he made it.’ ‘I hate my boy because he had the courage to do what I couldn’t.’ I kept on sayin’ to myself it was ‘cause he was gay, or some other dumb shit, but it wasn’t. I hated my son because he proved me wrong.” 

“I spent my whole life thinkin’ I was like my old man because I had to be, because it was inevitable. And along comes that cheeky little bastard, and he goes and becomes a good man on me, and it made me realize how much of a shit one I am. And yeah, I held it against him. If you’d walked in that door a few months ago, you would’ve found the meanest, bitterest old man there ever fuckin’ was.”

The android was completely still, unblinking. 

John pointed at the paper. “But guess what? I finally got my shit together. I know it don't make up for what I’ve done. I’m goin’ to hell once I’m outta this place, plain as day. I feel it in my soul. But not my boy. My boy ain’t goin’. Used to think bein’ gay sent you, but I don’t fuckin’ think so now. Nah. That’s a load of shit. Bein’ a nasty motherfucker who hates your own damn kid for the audacity to be a good person, that’s what gets ya to the Devil. And I’m sure as hell not lettin’ my boy waltz in here and fuck himself back up.”

The android stared at him, anger turning to shock. 

John grinned. “That’s right. I know I’m doomed. But the one thing I can do, the only thing in this fuckin’ world that I can do for that boy, for _my_ boy, is let him go.”

The fan continued spinning, whirring growing louder.

John didn’t even stop for breath.

“I’m a stubborn old bastard, and I’ve never been nothin’ but hell for everybody. I know if he comes waltzing in, I’m gonna go back to bein’ mean and nasty, and I’m gonna do whatever I can to make him stay, because I’m lonely and miserable and misery hates bein’ alone.”

He slammed the newspaper clipping back down on the dresser. 

“So I’m tellin’ you right now. I don’t give a shit that I’m dyin’, and he has a bleedin’ heart or whatever. You don’t let that boy see me. You walk out of here, you tell him I’m gone and they don’t know where, and you go back to whatever nice lives y’all been livin’. And you treat that boy right. You got my blessing and everythin’. I know it don’t mean shit to you, but you got it. So go.” 

“I’m goin’ to hell, but I ain’t draggin’ my little boy with me. Not Gavin.”

The android sat, staring at him, for a moment that seemed almost unending. 

John cleared his throat uncomfortably. 

Finally, the android shifted, and moved to get up. 

“Mr. Reed,” it said. “I still despise you.”

John Reed snorted. “Damn straight you do, son. Now fuck off and be happy and all that.”

The android started to walk out, but paused in the doorway, hesitating. It turned back to him, just for a second. 

“I still despise you,” it continued, “ _but_ I respect your decision, and I think it’s the right one. It’s rare to see someone like you regret their actions. I still loathe you for what you did in the past, but at least you seem to understand the consequences. Thank you for letting Gavin live in peace. You have my word he will _never_ be like you.”

Then he turned, and, without another word, left. 

John Reed immediately wheeled himself over to the window, cursing at how creaky the wheelchair was. He peered out the smudged glass. 

Outside the window, in the parking lot of the nursing home, Gavin sat on a bench. Even after twenty years, John recognized him instantly. There was a large cast on his leg that made him appear awkwardly lopsided. With his hands in his pockets and his eyes fixed on his feet, Gavin’s internal conflict was clear even from a distance. 

John Reed felt his eyes tear up. There were so many things he wanted to say, old horrible things and newer, regretful ones, but he knew what he had to do. He had to say none of them. 

He didn’t deserve to be forgiven.

Gavin’s life wasn’t about him. 

Not anymore. 

“Hey there, kiddo,” he whispered. “Y’know, I wish real bad I could do it over. Know I can’t. I’m too fucked up. I don’t wanna ruin what you got now. But for what it’s worth, I’m proud of ‘ya.”

He wished Gavin could hear him say it, but John knew it wasn’t that easy. 

He had hurt his son too deeply, and he had to take responsibility for it. 

In the parking lot, John saw the android walk up to Gavin. Gavin tilted his head down, hunching inward, saying something. The android responded, and John saw it gently reach out and put a hand on Gavin’s shoulder as his son leaned forward and buried his face in his hands. 

“That’s right, kid,” John said in a choked voice to the window, which couldn’t hear him. “I’m gone. Go on now. Go be happy.”

Slowly, painfully, Gavin began to stand, retrieving a pair of crutches from the side of the bench. The android helped him, motions smooth and steady. 

Footsteps rapidly approached from the hallway, breaking John out of his reverie. 

Suddenly, the cheerful nurse swept back into the room, and stared in surprise at John staring out the window. Normally, he avoided it. 

“How did the visit go, John?” she asked brightly. 

John turned and smiled at her, eyes full of tears. “Come look at this, Maggie,” he said. 

She came, peering out the window with him. 

John pointed. “That there’s my son. Android must be his boyfriend, or whatever.”

“The ones who won the medal?” Maggie was standing, one hand on her hip, smiling.

“That’s right. Ain't they good together? Look like somethin' right out a damn magazine.”

Maggie nodded, staring at him in bemusement. He was never this animated. 

“Well don’t worry,” she said, turning away to carry on with her work. “I’m sure they’ll be back soon.”

John turned back towards the window, still watching. The android reached out and started trying to help Gavin get to his feet. Gavin waved him off, clearly annoyed, and John could practically hear him saying _“I can stand up on my fuckin’ own, thank you.”_

“Nah, Maggie,” John whispered.

“He ain’t never comin’ back, thank god. My boy’s happy now. He made it.”

Maggie had already left the room. 

John sat there, staring out the window, tracing the outline of his son in the smudged glass until the car was long gone and both him and the android had faded into the distant rising sun.

He sat staring out the window as the spring day came into being, and the first faint hint of the tulips were warmed by the glow of afternoon.

He sat staring out the window as dusk began to take away the day that had been. 

Night came, and then, finally, unexpectedly, something happened. 

The tears that filled his eyes began to overflow, and for the first time in twenty years since the night Gavin Reed left his house with an old suitcase, John Reed began to cry.

  
  



	34. Dedications

Holy fuck, it’s over! What a journey.

Glad you stuck with it, and I hope you enjoyed it!

Thank you SO much to everyone who’s supported this fic! 

BUT WAIT THERE’S MORE! GO TO THE NEXT CHAPTER FOR A HINT AT THE SEQUEL…

Here’s our long list of dedications! 

**SPECIAL THANKS TO:**

MY BETA READERS AND BEST FRIENDS

LittleBlueLeprechaun & monstrblood

SUPERFANS (WHO WENT ABOVE AND BEYOND)

NHMoonShadow & HeadphonesGal

THE WONDERFUL COMMENTERS

NHMoonShadow

greenfae

HallowRose

Smollil

HeadphonesGal

Boopsnoot

Ether4al

THE FANTASTIC KUDOS GIVERS

[ YvY91 ](https://archiveofourown.org/users/YvY91), 

[ Caddl ](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Caddl),

[ Dragon97586 ](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dragon97586), 

[ wearealltalesintheend ](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wearealltalesintheend), 

[ Sisirine ](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sisirine),

[ Queenkitty2929 ](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Queenkitty2929)

[ JUNKDOG ](https://archiveofourown.org/users/JUNKDOG)

[ KapkanFkr420 ](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KapkanFkr420)

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[ HeadphonesGal ](https://archiveofourown.org/users/HeadphonesGal)

[ Anny_Reef ](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anny_Reef)

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[ LittleBlueLeprechaun ](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleBlueLeprechaun)

42 unnamed guests

AND ALL 742 READERS!

  
  



	35. Sneak Peek at Mystique

Forget-me-nots.

The dead woman’s eyes were the same color as the flowers in her hair. 

She was poised, artfully, in an elegant position that looked almost like a sculpture. Rigor mortis held her in place. The crown of forget-me-nots was integrated with an elaborate veil of white lace that fell gracefully down her back. 

The bloodstained silk wedding gown she was wrapped in extended outward, rippling over the room, which was staged like a movie set; a host of antique items and classic still-life objects had been structured to frame her. Elaborate globes mingled with vases of flowers mingled with stacks of old yellowing books, covers frayed. Warm light streamed in lazily from large arcing windows, illuminating the oakwood floors of the room. 

The light glinted off the pearl dagger embedded in the woman’s chest. In front of her, a gold-leafed, leather-bound edition of Shakespeare’s  _ Romeo and Juliet  _ had been left open to the infamous scene: 

_ “O, happy dagger, this is thy sheath.” _

A human would undoubtedly call the scene beautiful. 

To Nines, however, it was simply another murder.

He was capable of appreciating beauty, although many would be surprised to hear it. (Some people were surprised to hear that androids were capable of any abstract thought at all.) 

Nines understand the concept of aesthetic value perfectly well. What he was  _ not  _ capable of understanding was how humans, in their love of aesthetic value, sometimes seemed to discard logic and reason. 

The concept of a _ beautiful  _ murder was immaterial to him. It was still murder. Whether it was committed in a wide-open oak room or in a rotting gutter made no difference. 

Nines would hunt down and eliminate the murderer either way. 

He was glad that Gavin felt the same, although Nines was concerned that he seemed disproportionately unnerved by something. What exactly it was, Nines couldn’t tell. 

He knew that Gavin was upset partially from the rising levels of adrenaline in his scans, partially from the fact that Gavin’s pupils were dilated and he was beginning to fidget in the way he typically expressed distress (tapping his fingers together and pacing, mostly) and partially from the fact that he was increasing his profanity from its normal rate of about every one in fifteen words to every one in ten. 

Nines had spent a lot of time analyzing Gavin Reed. Perhaps an irrational amount. 

It hadn’t helped much. 

Nines guessed that the cause of his partner’s distress must be some deeply-held psychological trauma. Humans often experienced it, and Gavin personally had suffered a difficult childhood. Whatever the reason for his distress, it must be very serious. 

“What the fuck do you mean, ‘ _ I don’t know _ ’, Tina?! _ ”  _ his partner was currently yelling into his phone. “It’s a simple goddamn question! Do they have jalapeno poppers or not?!”

Fascinating. 

  
  



	36. Behind the Scenes

Hello everyone!

Given that Unusual still seems to be growing in popularity long after I've finished it, I thought I'd return to thank everyone new, and also to give you guys some behind-the-scenes content!

Thank you to all the new kudos-givers that didn't get properly thanked because I was no longer actively posting chapters: [leonardo_decapitated](/users/leonardo_decapitated), [TinySpiney](/users/TinySpiney), [a_LadyKnight](/users/a_LadyKnight), [Aerydar](/users/Aerydar), [ShiverWithaFriend](/users/ShiverWithaFriend), [LovelySaah](/users/LovelySaah), [bambieyedconnor](/users/bambieyedconnor), [Seasyndo](/users/Seasyndo), [Quicksilver_Rain](/users/Quicksilver_Rain), [Maxxlikespie](/users/Maxxlikespie), [flamox](/users/flamox), [SpringlockedSpectre](/users/SpringlockedSpectre), [Temporicidal](/users/Temporicidal), [i_am_deaded](/users/i_am_deaded), [anninterested](/users/anninterested), [destielstony](/users/destielstony), [ASocialwkardCat](/users/ASocialwkardCat), [NeverNotConfused](/users/NeverNotConfused), [janjan_the_ninth](/users/janjan_the_ninth), [LindauLane](/users/LindauLane), [Starskelly](/users/Starskelly), [defenderofemo](/users/defenderofemo), [Anastasia101](/users/Anastasia101), [Yurika](/users/Yurika), [V3r0](/users/V3r0), [Spot_Conlon_Is_My_Trash_Son](/users/Spot_Conlon_Is_My_Trash_Son), [smileyghost](/users/smileyghost), [TeddyTellsATale](/users/TeddyTellsATale), [highstresslevel](/users/highstresslevel), [AlricShoehorn](/users/AlricShoehorn), [BitterGravestones](/users/BitterGravestones), [catthecat](/users/catthecat), [Tonja](/users/Tonja), [Leaadriale](/users/Leaadriale), [42Blueberries](/users/42Blueberries), [Ray__7](/users/Ray__7), [PansexualPanic2](/users/PansexualPanic2), [Blue_moon22](/users/Blue_moon22), [faux_strider](/users/faux_strider), and [Ciella_303!](/users/Ciella_303)

Here are some behind the scenes looks at Unusual!

This hilariously shitty "action map" was my way of planning out everything from character staging to local scenery to timing to line of sight. Highlights include the body, which for some reason is just a scribble; a very derpy looking Nines holding the rifle, not exactly representing peak physical performance with his deformed head; and RK700 chilling on the rooftop with a mimosa during the scene where he tells Gavin to shoot. 

  


The timing also had to be tracked very carefully, due to the bomb plot and the fact that the entire thing takes place over the span of about fifteen or so minutes:

  


I also had to very carefully plan out in green and red what parts of the chronological events happened "onscreen" or "offscreen", and what precise times information would be revealed:

And finally, I didn't actually know the plot when I started. I had to figure it out. 

See, I actually never know what my stories are about when I start them, aside from their atmosphere. I learn as I go. It's almost as though the characters act independently. So I was just as surprised by Nines's kidnapping and the RK700 twist and the bomb threat as you guys were! I just figured it out a bit sooner. 

As I wrote, I would write what I figured out in comments: 

I can't thank you all enough for the continuing success of Unusual and Mystique through all this time! Love you guys!


End file.
